Pittsburgh Penguins

Sidney Crosby scores goal of the year
March 22, 2017, 10:29 AM ET [90 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
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The Pittsburgh Penguins 3-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres last night wasn’t short of eventful incidents. Almost all of them involved Sidney Crosby

The most notable of those events was Crosby’s amazing individual effort. It culminated in what will end up being the goal of the year.



Don’t forget to do your forearm curls, kids

Sidney Crosby has scored many highlight reel goals throughout his career. This one deserves to be included among the best he has ever scored. He is known throughout hockey for having the best backhand in the sport, but I’m not sure many people thought that would include roofing one handed shots on breakaways.

The one handed shot was the most physically impressive part of the goal, but as a coach of high school players I would like to highlight the fact that he didn’t go through a single Buffalo players tripod area. He used his speed to go around and not through.

Given how the power play has looked without Evgeni Malkin a play like that is the only way the Penguins were going to score with the man advantage.

Prior to that goal Crosby was guilty of hitting Ryan O’Reilly in the head. Not that head. The one found in the southern region.



I don’t like this play at all. It’s not something he needs to do. It’s not something he should do. A tap to that region isn’t worse than a concussion inducing hit, but it has no purposeful place in sport.

The good news for Crosby is that Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News will probably be writing an article about how Sid deserves the Masterton. That seems to be the standard for hit and runs involving Ryan O’Reilly.

Rasmus Ristolainen is apparently as careless delivering hits as he is playing defense. He recklessly engaged Jake Guentzel in the first period of play leaving the Penguins rookie bloodied and with a concussion.


Yes, the puck was tipped. No, that is not an excuse for Ristolainen. The onus is on the hitter to not engage there and perhaps if he wasn’t engaging with his back to the play he would have been able to pull up. It was careless and just the latest example of players who are hitting with no intent on playing the puck. That hit is not made if Ristolainen is looking to make a play on the puck. That hit isn’t made if he’s actually facing the play.

I don’t think for a second that Ristolainen meant to leave Guentzel in his wake like that. It does not change Ristolainen’s negligence. Drunk drivers do not mean to hit the things they do, but it does not change their culpability. The league is better for having players like Guentzel playing well with stars like Sidney Crosby than it is enabling hits like the one Ristolainen threw last night.

I thought the Penguins and the referees handled the situation perfectly. The Penguins did not escalate the situation by trying to start a brawl and the referees assertively gave a game misconduct and a major penalty. There were no other incidents in the game. There was no need for vigilante justice. Ramping up violence wasn’t going to change Guentzel’s health condition and only had the potential to increase the odds of another injury for either team. A bad incident happened and both teams along with the officials did a good job making sure another one didn't happen.

The injuries are really starting to rack up for the Penguins. They are running out of skilled forwards. If Sidney Crosby wasn’t on the ice last night the chances of something creative happening were slim to none. In a logical world this would have been a great opportunity for Daniel Sprong to get a few NHL games in given the Penguins need for skill. Instead we can thank the really cool transfer rule that is in place.

Zach Aston-Reese made his professional debut last night and it was very successful. He scored his first professional goal which happened to be the game winner. He earned second star honors.



Aston-Reese is on an amateur tryout, which means he is not eligible for NHL action this year. This was a decision the team made as opposed to the Sprong situation which the team has no control over.

Last night’s victory secured a playoff spot for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Given the playoff format the Penguins are pretty much guaranteed to have a difficult first two rounds. The only way to avoid that is finishing in first, but the mounting injuries are going to make that difficult. At this point in time the biggest goal would be to finish the regular season with no more injuries and get back the services of Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Carl Hagelin, Bryan Rust, and some of the other defenseman.