Kovacevic: Doing 'whatever it takes,' Crosby literally takes down Wings taken at PPG Paints Arena (DK's Grind)

JOE SARGENT / GETTY

Sidney Crosby takes down the Red Wings' Ben Chiarot in the second period Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena.

DK's Grind

Kovacevic: Doing 'whatever it takes,' Crosby literally takes down Wings

By Dejan Kovacevic

Apr 12, 2024 โ€ข 5:05 am

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"Did I get the two points?"

Sidney Crosby smiled upon wryly asking me this as I was walking away from his stall late Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena, this following my friendly jab his way about ... well, let's just say I already knew he could do anything after he for-real homered in batting practice at PNC Park a few years back ...

... but I'd never seen him wrestle until this:

"Hey," Sid would tell me, "whatever it takes."

Oh, man, the crowd loved that. Should've heard the 18,441 on hand erupt, as if Sid had taken a folding chair to Detroit defenseman Ben Chiarot.

Almost as much as they loved the Penguins surging back into Stanley Cup playoff position by outlasting the right-in-the-race-too Red Wings, 6-5 in overtime, with three equally gargantuan games to go.

"This is fun," Sid would say. "This a fun time of year, and this was a big game. Big two points."

Right. Those two points:

NHL


That's complete control, tiebreakers and all. Win and they're in.

But hey, to answer the captain's question, yeah, if I'm a PIAA ref and this was on the mat between, oh, McGuffey and Jefferson-Morgan, I'm absolutely giving the two for the takedown.

"He's fired up to lead this team," Bryan Rust would say of this sequence. "You can see he's very emotionally invested. He's in there playing his heart out, and I think everybody in here has taken notice of that. We're all trying to do the same."

They are, actually. On the very next shift, as if for some sweet symmetry, the other two members of the Core came through with their own physicality, first with Evgeni Malkin catching Patrick Kane looking a little too casual at center red ...

... then with Kris Letang turning a routine forecheck into a forearm shiver to the grill of Shayne Gostisbehere:

The citizens soaked those up, as well.

It started with Sid. It always starts with Sid. And even though I wrote on this same subject yesterday, I'm back for more because he's always back for more, particularly at this time of year: His goal and two assists in this game have him at 20 points through the Penguins' 7-0-3 streak that began March 24. And it's anything but a coincidence that his point total's the highest in the NHL in that span, and the same applies to his team's point total. Those figures have been inexorably linked for two full decades now.

And all of this, it's worth stressing, has come after the trading of the best left winger he'd ever had in Jake Guentzel.

Still, it's not so much the what but the how.

Watch Sid's maneuver behind the Detroit net to begin setting up what'd be his own goal:

Took Dylan Larkin to school.

"You just try to be instinctive out there," he'd say with trademark humility. "Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. There's times where I do it, and it hits the guy's skate or I don't get it clean, and I don't talk about it, right?"

Yeah, no. He's done this a ton. Never gets old. 

Kinda like Sid himself:

Rust does the heavy lifting here with an elegant 40-foot saucer, but Sid's dictating the flow by bursting late across the blue line with back-door designs from the first stride. Old friend David Perron realizes this, but not in time and not with enough of a burst to keep up.

"That was a beautiful pass," Sid would say. "I was trying to stop because I wasn't sure if he'd just put in on net, but he put it right on my tape through at least two or three guys. He threaded the needle on that one."

Naturally, Sid would set the grandest stage:

Pay crazy-close attention. That's the opening faceoff of overtime. Sid appears to deliberately get himself thrown out, allowing Rust to take it, then hijacking the puck right where Larkin tends to win it.

That's insane. And legal.

Then this:

Sid went on to have a bigger role than it might appear on Erik Karlsson's epic blast, as Rickard Rakell, the other skater on the ice, explained to me, saying, "I had the first chance after Karl got it to me, but after their goalie made the save, Sid's the one who made sure we kept possession."

Uh-huh. That's Sid out-thinking and out-muscling J.T. Compher just to the left of Alex Lyon's net. It's from there that Sid's able to dish to Karlsson.

Sid's analysis of this one?

"Great goal."

Meaning Karlsson's portion of the effort. Some stuff never changes.

Neither does this: Sid keeps climbing every conceivable ladder this league has. 

The assist on the winner was the 1,000th of his career:

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โ€œIt's probably apropos that it's an overtime goal that he gets the assist on,โ€ Mike Sullivan would say. โ€œI think this one's a huge milestone. Thereโ€™s not too many guys who get 1,000 assists.โ€

Nope. Sid's just the 14th, as well as the seventh-fastest, achieving it in 1,269 games.

"It's a great honor," he'd say.

Hardly to be overlooked, his three points moved him onto the NHL's all-time top 10 points list, overtaking Phil Esposito:

PENGUINS


He's the NHL's first player to break into that top 10 since Jaromir Jagr did so Jan. 19, 2008.

โ€œThink about that for a second,โ€ Sullivan said. โ€œIt puts him in really elite company. The milestones he's achieving now, they're self-explanatory.โ€

Here again, Sid took the humble route, even when asked about approaching Mario Lemieux after he'd pass Joe Sakic, saying, โ€œYeah, thatโ€™s cool. I mean, I couldnโ€™t have told you that. I havenโ€™t looked that closely at it. But to be in that company with all those players, that means a lot. I grew up watching those players that you named. Iโ€™m obviously a big fan of the game and the history. So yeah, itโ€™s something that Iโ€™m honored to be part of.โ€

At the moment, his teammates understandably seem more focused on Sid from the standpoint of what's at hand.

"It's been it's been a heck of a ride playing with him for as long as I have," Rust would say. "He's a special player, but an even more special person. He's awesome. And he's leading this team right now. I think we're all just kind of getting in line behind him and trying to do everything we can."

โ€œThese last couple weeks, watching him play, heโ€™s a man on a mission,โ€ Alex Nedeljkovic would say. โ€œItโ€™s not very surprising. He does it every day. He comes into the rink every day, and treats his body well, and just cares so much and wants to win. Anything short of winning, itโ€™s not acceptable."

Yep. He's carrying the team.

Carrying the other team at times, too, at least when they tick him off.

"The guy's just special," Detroit's coach, Derek Lalonde, would say. "It's tough. You're watching ... I don't notice other teams' players much, but that first goal, he was keeping that alive. What I saw of him in their last game against Toronto, watching that third period, he was amazing. He's a special player. He's as good as it gets. These next-echelon type of superstars, you notice the drive of all of them. They have points in 10 straight, and he's the best player on the ice."

Still. And seemingly forever.

โ€ข I've got a bonus Drive to the Net on the Karlsson goal ... and various other misadventures that preceded it.

โ€ข Thanks for reading.

โ€ข And for listening: 

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