Sidney Crosby is in Year 20 of his decorated career and he’s functioned as perhaps the first superstar of the 24-hour news cycle era, where he’s been a national presence since he was a teenage phenom at the famed Minnesota private school Shattuck-St. Mary’s. The atmosphere surrounding Crosby often feels like a prize fight, with all eyes on the Pittsburgh Penguins’ superstar in every arena he enters, which is still true at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday, hours before the Maple Leafs’ home opener.
We’re all intimately familiar with the defining moment of Crosby’s career, with the Golden Goal from the 2010 Olympics firmly embedded into the national lore. One month prior to his gold-medal winning goal against the United States, Crosby pulled off a spectacular one-handed goal against the Maple Leafs, which is certainly worth watching again, if only for aesthetic value at the very least.
It’s not particularly revelatory but ahead of the research process for Saturday’s home opener, there’s no real consensus on what constitutes Crosby’s top 1o career highlights, aside from the Golden Goal. He has the innate ability of pulling off the spectacular and during a January 9, 2010 against the Maple Leafs, he left the Air Canada Centre crowd in muted awe.
Sergei Gonchar, who already had a terrific evening up to this juncture, with two second-period goals, finds Pascal Dupuis for an uncontested breakout pass, and he skates the puck over to Crosby. The rest, as they say, is history. Crosby receives the puck from inside the centre faceoff dot and then proceeds to put Tomas Kaberle on a poster, while Matt Stajan and Luke Schenn skated idly by on the backcheck, almost stopping to watch The Kid in suspended appreciation like the audience. Crosby made an inside-outside fake on Kaberle, banked the puck off his skate, appearing to lose control, but control is only illusory, and he regains the puck, tucking it past an ill-timed Jonas Gustavsson for a spectacular one-handed finish.
You can hear the crowd murmur in appreciation while Stajan and Schenn look up in disbelief. In the context of the game, it punctuated a stellar two-point performance from Crosby in a comprehensive win, during a season where they were defending their Stanley Cup title, the first of Crosby’s three rings, while the Ron Wilson-led Maple Leafs were already reasonably out of playoff contention by the new calendar year.
For most NHL players, this would be atop their career mixtape. For Crosby, it was just another evening, a rote function of what comes with being the best player of your generation. Crosby’s wonder goal occurred during the first Maple Leafs game I attended as a fan, so the moment also reflects a natural 14-year process from hockey fan to trained, mid-career journalist.
During Saturday’s scrum, I asked Crosby about his fondest memories of playing in Toronto.
“It’s a lot of different games to remember,” Crosby said after taking a few seconds to reflect after Saturday’s morning practice. “It’s hard to say. Obviously playing in the World Cup here too was pretty special. An opportunity to play for Canada here and experience that. That one comes to mind pretty quick but there’s been lots of one over the years that have been pretty memorable.”
It’s an entirely fair observation. Crosby has recorded 29 goals and 68 points in 53 career games against the Maple Leafs and there’s little reason why a routine game in a non-championship season would stand out to him during his illustrious career. Crosby’s breathtaking goal is worth highlighting here, and we’re truly lucky to be in his presence as one of the NHL’s premier talents, 15 seasons after the fact.
