‘The greatest ever to represent his country.’ Even at 37, Sidney Crosby adds to his legend
MONTREAL – “Mario! Mario! Mario!”
The greatest player ever produced by the immortal hockey city of Montreal returned to a true hero’s welcome Wednesday night at Bell Centre. The electricity was palpable as Mario Lemieux stepped out for a ceremonial puck drop to open the 4 Nations Face-Off.
“Crosby ! Crosby! Crosby!”
A few hours later, with Team Canada battling to stave off a Team Sweden comeback in a thrilling 3-on-3 overtime, the chants rained down for another Canadian icon who played his junior hockey in Quebec, another first overall pick, another Pittsburgh Penguins legend. Instead of No. 66, it was No. 87 receiving the raucous cheers. First, they came in the middle of the play, before he backed Sweden’s defense up, late in a shift, buying time, and sent a long drop pass to Mitch Marner, who entered the zone with speed and ripped a wrist shot past goaltender Filip Gustavsson’s blocker for Canada’s overtime winner. After the game ended, the Crosby chants continued right through to when he earned player of the game honors, having assisted on three of Canada’s four goals.
The moment came roughly 23 years after Lemieux, then 36, lifted Canada out of the best-on-best doldrums and helped his country win its first Olympic gold medal in 50 years. He did so as the grizzled vet, the multi-time Stanley Cup winner and legendary Penguin giving hockey fans one of the final great thrills of his career.
Wednesday night in Montreal, we saw the legendary lifetime Penguin Crosby, a grizzled 37, elevating his nation the same way. And it happened on a night when Lemieux surprised the Canadian players before the game by entering their dressing room to read the starting lineup and fire them up. Hockey sure can be poetic sometimes.
It’s not like Wednesday was the passing of a torch, though. That happened long ago. Crosby is give or take a top-five player in NHL history. He has more Stanley Cups than Lemieux and has even surpassed him as the Penguins’ all-time assists leader. Crosby owns a legendary golden goal at the 2010 Olympics and was the driving force on the team that steamrolled the competition at the 2014 Winter Games and 2016 World Cup, too. But if the iconic 2010 moment represented Crosby at the peak of his powers in a prime year, just like Lemieux’s goal in the 1987 Canada Cup did – Game 1 of the 4 Nations Face-Off felt eerily similar to the savvy support Lemieux provided in 2002. Crosby understands how numerous the parallels are but doesn’t necessarily stop to think about them.
“I can see the parallels that you mention. I don’t think about that a whole lot,” he told Daily Faceoff following Canada’s 4-3 win. “When I think of this event, I can only speak to that. I think about an unbelievable opportunity to play for Team Canada with a lot of guys that I’ve been waiting to play with for a while, and it hasn’t happened. And I’m just grateful for the opportunity to be able to play for Canada, be able to play for this group, still be playing. Still. It’s not an easy league. Got to work hard to still be playing at a high level. So I’m grateful for all that.”
It wouldn’t be on-brand for Crosby to celebrate his own greatness, right? Furthering the point: he was the first one to joke that, while he did set up Marner’s winner, “I was on the bench” by the time he actually scored. Fair enough – but Crosby directly authored great friend Nathan MacKinnon’s game-opening goal, 56 seconds in, on a cross-crease feed from his backhand on the power play. It was all Crosby on Canada’s third goal, too, outracing Gustav Forsling, charging toward the net, boxing him out with the patented Crosby caboose and feeding a streaking Mark Stone. At 37, not necessarily 100 percent healthy and playing on a team of in-their-prime superstars, Crosby still managed to stand out from the pack. Not bad for the oldest player in the tournament on any team.
“I’m amazed, but I’m not surprised at all,” said Canada defenseman Drew Doughty. “He’s a gamer, man. In big situations, he plays even better. And he did it again tonight and was probably best player on the ice.”
“He’s amazing. He’s just ageless,” said Canada center Connor McDavid. “It’s a credit to him. It’s a credit to how much he puts into his work ethic, a credit to how he takes care of himself, a credit to how smart he is out there. Just gets it done time and time again. He did that again tonight.”
Crosby’s Penguins are on the verge of missing the playoffs a third consecutive season, and he’s determined to go down with the ship, re-signed for two more years and unlikely ever to leave his only NHL home. He was banged up going into the 4 Nations Face-Off, missing Pittsburgh’s last two game with an upper-body injury. But he still managed to bring the fans to their feet Wednesday – multiple times. Dating back to 2010, Canada has now won 25 consecutive games with him in its lineup.
Crosby didn’t just have the crowd in awe; as MacKinnon said leading up to the first game, half the players on the team are fans. As Marner explained after the game, he wore No. 87 as a kid, idolizing Crosby, and it was a dream come true for Marner to see his name on the box score alongside Crosby’s on the winning goal. And even Canada coach Jon Cooper couldn’t help but feel astounded. He said Wednesday night he “could write a book” on Crosby just in the short time they’ve spent together.
“I think if you were really listening to what happened at the beginning of the game, when everybody was announced, Mario Lemieux’s roar aside, Sidney Crosby, the roof was coming off,” Cooper said. “And he’s been a Pittsburgh Penguin his whole life. That just shows you how much people care about him and respect him in this country.
“But just his demeanor on the bench, he says all the right things at the right time…it’s no coincidence, his record when he’s wearing a Canadian jersey. That’s not a fluke. He will go down as the greatest player to ever represent his country. If not, he’s going to be on the Mount Rushmore for sure.”
Canada wasn’t perfect Wednesday night. It let Sweden off the mat with rather listless second and third periods after a dominant first period. Canada went for the pretty play perhaps too often, as if burdened by all its star power. It endured a tournament-ending injury to defenseman Shea Theodore. It had some shaky moments from goaltender Jordan Binnington before he buckled down when he needed to in overtime. But when you have Crosby, you don’t always need to be perfect. He finds a way to push the group through adversity. He always has.
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