Sidney Crosby Pointless Streak Coming to an End

Sidney Crosby pointless stretches of four games do not occur very often, as its only the fourth time in his career where he has without a point. The longest stretch of his career came back in November 2009 at five games. Sid the kid looks to avoid matching his career-worst pointless streak when the Pittsburgh Penguins face off at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night.

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There’s a likely chance the Sidney Crosby pointless streak comes to an end Saturday night. His points-per-game rate of 1.58 vs. the Maple Leafs is the highest of any opponent Crosby has played this season. Opening night’s opponent Dallas, has only yielded 12 points in nine games (1.33 PPG) over Sidney’s career. The history against Arizona/Phoenix is better with 16 points in 11 games (1.45 PPG), however the Pens came face-to-face with a hungry young Coyotes team that has largely been carried by Mike Smith early on. In the third game, the Penguins came up against the league’s hottest team with Montreal. In 29 career games, Crosby has 38 points vs. Montreal (1.31 PPG), although getting pucks past Carey Price is proving more difficult these days. Most recently, the Penguins got the goose egg off their back in a 2-0 victory over the Ottawa Senators. Sidney Crosby has a mere 30 points in 30 games against Ottawa (that’s less than mediocre by Sidney Crosby statistical standards).

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Now to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night, and if the stats could speak, they’d tell us how much Sidney Crosby loves to play Toronto. In 31 career games vs. Maple Leafs, he has 49 points (1.58 PPG as mentioned above), which is good enough for sixth most productive point-per-game (PPG) rate versus NHL opponents. If you’re curious who number one is, New York Islanders take the cake with an astonishing 89 points over 50 career games (1.78).

Given the success versus the Maple Leafs, it may be safe to say the Sidney Crosby pointless streak has an excellent chance of being broken Saturday night. Considering his new linemate Phil Kessel is facing his old team for the first time, it’s safe to assume that both players will be playing with somewhat of a chip on their shoulder. For different reasons of course, as Phil would love to stick it to Leafs fans and management, while Sidney simply tries to avoid matching his longest pointless streak in nearly six years.

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