Pittsburgh Penguins

Sidney Crosby's Rocket Richard Trophy is both impressive and depressing
April 10, 2017, 11:25 AM ET [90 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSS • Archive • CONTACT
The Penguins have completed their 82 game grind along with the rest of the NHL. The team earned the second seed in the Metropolitan Division and will play the Columbus Blue Jackets in round one of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Sidney Crosby has officially won the Rocket Richard Trophy for most goals in the regular season. He will not have to share the award like the previous time he won. His 44 goals were good enough to stand-alone. I find the accomplishment impressive given the fact that Crosby is outside of the normal aging curve where players usually lead the league in goals. It is also worth noting that the past couple of years he has shown signs that his best goal scoring days were behind him. It was an excellent renaissance in the goal-scoring department for Sid.

All that said I find it very disappointing that the league leader in goal scoring only had 44. It is the lowest total for a winner since before the 2004-05 lockout.

source: imgur.com

It is the second lowest total since the 1998-99 season and the lowest total of the salary cap era. Alexander Ovechkin may be the best goal scorer in league history and that is the only reason some of these Rocket Richard totals are higher than they probably should be. He is amazing. He is an exception to the rule. So why are other players struggling to score goals? The league hates their own rule book. Here is the evidence.

source: imgur.com

This is remarkably pathetic. Every other sports league is trying to craft rules to make their sport more interesting. Hockey is doing the opposite. It is an insult to everybody's intelligence when people try to come up with ideas to increase goal scoring and don't start here. All the other stuff doesn't matter. This is the primary reason and it can be fixed overnight. Nothing crazy has to be done.

Sidney Crosby has a good chance at being a finalist for the Hart Trophy, but it will probably go to Connor McDavid who is another great candidate. Crosby and McDavid led the NHL in average 'game score'




Due to the concussion at the beginning of the year Crosby missed too many games to keep up with Connor McDavid in the points race. As a result we only have a single player who was able to hit the 90 points barrier and it was McDavid who ended up getting 100 points exactly. This is a tremendous feat given the current conditions. He is the eighth youngest to achieve this milestone.




You will notice that Sidney Crosby is the youngest player to ever record 100 points in a season. You will also notice that the year he did it was in 2005-06. That isn't a coincidence. Connor McDavid has the biggest uphill battle of any generational super star because there is less of an advantage to being good these days. Defenders are allowed to consistently cheat to stay with the star players. It is a testement to McDavid's (and Sid's) greatness that they were able to have the seasons that they did.

More on the playoffs in the coming days.