Crosby's greatness revealed as Penguins recapture their swagger

By Michael Farber
SI.com
May 29, 2008



The first of Sidney Crosby's two goals ended the Penguins' scoreless streak at 137 minutes, 25 seconds.
Dave Sandford/Getty Images

PITTSBURGH -- Maybe 20-year-old Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby was simply waiting until the Stanley Cup finals jumped from cable to an over-the-air network to play a game for the ages Wednesday, one of the matches that will be lauded today and savored when his fabulous career is over.

With the Penguins' season in the balance -- and with a potentially riveting final about to become a colossal dud -- NBC's favorite hockey player decided this was not going to be May sweeps week in Detroit.

If the measure of a star is the ability to play as big as the game, Crosby's greatness was revealed in a way that not even his Hart Trophy season ever could. In a showcase Game 3 that ranks in excitement and physicality and sheer quality with any match in the past five finals, the NHL's youngest captain scored the first two goals in the 3-2 back-and-forth win for a team that a) hallelujah, scored a goal and b) regained the swagger that it had while bulling its way to the finals. On the day that the NHL presented the Mark Messier Leadership award to Toronto Maple Leafs captain Mats Sundin in the afternoon -- and when the Versus network ceded its place to The Peacock for the rest of the series -- Crosby upped the ante at night with his first goals since Mother's Day, in his first home game of his Stanley Cup finals life.



PITTSBURGH - MAY 28: Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins celebrates with Jarkko Ruutu #37 after scoring a first period goal past goaltender Chris Osgood #30 of the Detroit Red Wings during game three of the 2008 NHL Stanley Cup Finals at Mellon Arena on May 28, 2008 in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania. The Penguins defeated the Red Wings 3-2 to set the series at 2-1 Red Wings. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)


Crosby had been preternaturally quiet before the game. No speeches. Nothing. Pierre Larouche, an adviser to Penguins chairman Mario Lemieux, looked at Crosby and noticed no trace of the nerves that he had detected before the first two games. Up in Lemieux's box, Larouche turned to Troy Crosby, Sidney's father, and said, "The kid's going to have a big game tonight." Crosby didn't exactly have small games in Detroit. Indeed he had given worthy efforts in the shutout losses while most of the rest of the Penguins were taking tours of the Ford plant or dining in Greektown or whatever it was that had occupied their time. But in a series that was on the brink of being depressingly short, effort must yield production. Crosby, who never has scored more than 39 goals during his three-year NHL career, needed a payoff given the dire circumstances and the parched Penguins' goal drought.

With the Pittsburgh streak of futility nearing seven periods -- the Penguins had been outshot 9-1 midway through the first period -- coach Michel Therrien kicked off the anticipated Pittsburgh push when he threw Evgeni Malkin on a line with Crosby and Marian Hossa. The sustained pressure through a few shifts took its toll on the previously impervious Red Wings. Defenseman Brad Stuart, who with partner Niklas Kronwall had seen considerable more of Malkin's line in the matches in Detroit, passed the puck from behind his net and directly into Henrik Zetterberg's skates, one of those tape-to-laces passes. Crosby gathered the loose puck and bore down on Chris Osgood, neatly sliding the puck in with 2:35 left in the first period to put a Chrysler-size dent in the corona of invincibility that had encircled the goalie.



Pittsburgh Penguins forward Sidney Crosby, right, checks Detroit Red Wings defenseman Brian Rafalski into the boards during the first period in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup hockey finals in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, May 28, 2008.
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Then, two and a half minutes into the second period, Crosby tapped in a power-play gimme to the left of Osgood off a soft, short pass from Hossa after Stuart, a veritable fifth column for Detroit for much of the game, failed to clear the puck.

"[Crosby] really brought it," said Pittsburgh defenseman Ray Whitney. "That's a leader, really stepping up and leading us. He proved tonight why he's the best player in the game, in our minds. He seemed real focused before the game. He always does. Tonight might have been a little different. He might have said this team's going on my shoulders tonight. I'm the captain and we're back home and it's my first home Stanley Cup final game. I hope one of many."

"You need a guy like that not only to do the right things and say the right things but when the game is big like that, to be a big-time player," defenseman Hall Gill said. "I've seen it on more than a handful of occasions when he takes a game over by himself. Sometimes it's not highlight goals. Sometimes it's a back check. He just does what it takes to win."

Crosby was his usual diffident self after the game, belying no emotion. When asked if he thought the performance was the highlight of his career, he said he didn't know. He talked about his linemates moving their feet. He allowed that the puck had ended up on his stick. He brought an A-game, but his postgame comments were as dull as C-span. But who cares? More than two decades after NBC had the Cosby Show, finally it had the Crosby Show. This one also was a winner.