This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Sidney Crosby

Eighty-four points at 35 out of the 25th-softest chair of 652 skaters, and fourteen fewer goals against than the model asked.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2005-06	PIT	81	39	63	102	-1	110	16	0	5	278	14.0	20:08
2006-07	PIT	79	36	84	120	+10	60	13	0	4	250	14.4	20:46
2007-08	PIT	53	24	48	72	+18	39	6	0	4	173	13.9	20:51
2008-09	PIT	77	33	70	103	+3	76	7	0	3	238	13.9	21:57
2009-10	PIT	81	51	58	109	+15	71	13	2	6	298	17.1	21:57
2010-11	PIT	41	32	34	66	+20	31	10	1	3	161	19.9	21:55
2011-12	PIT	22	8	29	37	+15	14	2	0	3	75	10.7	18:28
2012-13	PIT	36	15	41	56	+26	16	3	0	1	124	12.1	21:06
2013-14	PIT	80	36	68	104	+18	46	11	0	5	259	13.9	21:58
2014-15	PIT	77	28	56	84	+5	47	10	0	3	237	11.8	19:58
2015-16	PIT	80	36	49	85	+19	42	10	0	9	248	14.5	20:28
2016-17	PIT	75	44	45	89	+17	24	14	0	5	255	17.3	19:53
2017-18	PIT	82	29	60	89	0	46	9	0	6	247	11.7	20:41
2018-19	PIT	79	35	65	100	+18	36	12	0	3	220	15.9	21:00
2019-20	PIT	41	16	31	47	-8	15	4	0	4	109	14.7	20:16
2020-21	PIT	55	24	38	62	+8	26	5	1	5	159	15.1	20:24
2021-22	PIT	69	31	53	84	+19	32	8	0	9	208	14.9	19:58
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	1108	517	892	1409	+202	731	153	4	78	3539	14.6	20:46

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

69 games, 31 goals and 53 assists at 19:58 a night, plus-19, thirty-two penalty minutes, 208 shots. Eight of the thirty-one came on the power play. First overall in 2005. Seventeen seasons, 1,108 games, 1,409 points and a career plus-202, all of it for one club.

The Finesse Game

2.84 even-strength points per 60 is the 91st percentile among forwards at 35 years old, which is the number that matters and it has not moved.

Sixty-two per cent of his attempts came from the slot at a 20-foot median, the 86th percentile among forwards.

9.06 shots per 60 at 14.9 per cent, both in the top fifth. Thirty-six per cent of his points came on the power play off 3:20 a night, the 93rd percentile.

2.35 giveaways per 60 is the 89th percentile against 1.48 takeaways at the 38th. He has the puck constantly and the ledger reads accordingly.

54.9 per cent of the expected goals and 54.2 per cent of the attempts, out of 63.1 per cent offensive-zone starts — the 25th-highest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts. That is one of the thirty softest chairs in hockey and it is a deliberate use of him.

His ice went 57-33 against an expectation of 57.09-46.84. Fourteen fewer goals against than the model asked — the largest defensive surplus on the club, from the forward with the softest assignment on it.

The Physical Game

2.18 hits per 60 is the 24th percentile and 1.61 blocks the 45th at 5-11 and 200 pounds. 0.65 penalties drawn per 60 against 0.70 taken, thirty-two penalty minutes in sixty-nine games.

Nothing in the physical file is remarkable and nothing in it ever was.

The Intangibles

22.4 mph is the 46th percentile, 6.7 bursts per 60 the 67th, 9.90 miles per 60 the 72nd. Three ordinary skating measurements at 35, which for a man producing at the 91st percentile is the point rather than the objection.

He is 35 and has played sixty-nine, fifty-five, forty-one and seventy-nine games in the last four seasons. Eighty-four points in sixty-nine games is a hundred-point pace and the last time he played eighty was 2017-18.

The scoring rate says nothing has gone; the games played say the only question left is how many.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

clutch· scored his goals when the game was still live
6 of his 31 goals late or in overtime, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure barely repeats (0.06) · 10% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
15:37 a game at five-on-five, 97th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
sheltered· is started in the attacking end
63% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
net-fronta strength· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“Sixty-two per cent of his attempts came from the slot at a 20-foot median, the 86th percentile among forwards.”
leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it
“Seventeen seasons, 1,108 games, 1,409 points and a career plus-202, all of it for one club.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,078 minutes

Expected goals: 54.9%; 86th pct
Shot attempts: 54.2%; 85th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 57 for, 33 against. Expected: 57.1 and 46.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

100th

Numbers

86th

The two rank him within 14 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 83 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 69 games

Top speed: 22.4 mph; 62nd pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 2.25 a game
Distance: 3.30 miles a game
Hardest shot: 89.9 mph; 66th pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Usual linemates

2021-22 · 1078 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2021-22

The club: PIT took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.9% — 1.4 above the club he did it on.
The role: First line, 1,078 minutes at five-on-five — 73rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Jake Guentzel	54.8%	55.8%	48.0%
Kris Letang	56.4%	52.6%	47.8%
Bryan Rust	51.0%	59.3%	50.1%

54.8% together, 55.8% for him apart and 48.0% for Guentzel apart. Guentzel was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Guentzel than for him.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

261 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 31 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 50% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 15% from beyond forty.