"From the opening shift, you can see his drive and his appetite to win."
That was Mike Sullivan on the brilliance of Sidney Crosby, six years ago, today, after the Penguins defeated the Predators, 6-0, in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final at PPG Paints Arena, taking a 3-2 series lead.
To this day, Crosby has appeared in 1,370 NHL games, including the postseason, while amassing 1,703 points. For 18 consecutive seasons, he's brought nothing but excellence. Yet his play in that crucial Game 5 back in 2017 still separates itself as one of the very best single-game performances of his entire career.
There's no better time than right now to re-live it.
Crosby didn't score in that game, had three assists, and put three shots on target. Those certainly weren't the most gaudy boxscore numbers he's ever posted, but considering the stakes and the fashion in which he was able to execute all over the ice ... well, it was the stuff legends are made of.
As Sullivan said, Crosby wasted no time setting the tone for himself and the Penguins:
On the first shift of the game, the Predators chipped the puck off the wall and out to the neutral zone. Crosby, as the Penguins' furthest forward back, began to retreat while keeping an eye on the Nashville skater picking up speed through the middle. A well-timed pinch from Justin Schultz prevented the puck from advancing past center-ice.
Knowing that both Jake Guentzel and Conor Sheary still had to tag up at the blue line, Schultz quickly turned and fired the puck right back where it came from, hitting Guentzel right on top of the blue line at the perfect time. In the moment it took for that to happen, Crosby looped against the grain and immediately began to build speed through the gaping pocket of open ice up the gut. Right as he came out of a crossover, Guentzel found him with a pass.
Approaching the blue line with the puck, Crosby had James Neal on his tail and zero puck support due to the way the play developed. However, both Predators defensemen, Ryan Ellis and Roman Josi, were caught in no man's land with very loose gaps.
"I had some speed, and we had a pretty quick play," Crosby said. "So I wasn't sure if they were trying to get up and get their gap or if they were trying to back off. I felt like they were maybe on their way up to get a gap, and I just tried to take it to the net."
Crosby went right after Ellis upon crossing the blue line. A quick lean to the outside before cutting back inside left Ellis on his heels, at which point he attempted to knock the puck away with a stick check.
Big mistake.
Crosby then made a mess of him by dangling the puck through his triangle (area between toe caps and outreached stick) to take the center lane. With no other viable option to recover, Ellis turned and did his best to latch onto Crosby, but it was no match for the captain's impeccable edge control that allowed him to lean into the contact while protecting the puck.
The momentum Crosby gathered on his way from the neutral zone helped him shake Ellis off like he was a fly. It was then that Josi made a last-ditch effort to help, but it didn't matter. Crosby, falling to one knee, rang a shot off the pipe while the referee signaled a penalty on Ellis.
About 15 seconds later, the Predators finally possessed the puck to bring play to a halt, putting the Penguins on the man advantage.
Quite the opening sequence, eh? That assertiveness from Crosby was on display the entire game.
On the ensuing power play, Crosby flexed his ability to beat the opposition in multiple ways:
After Schultz hit him with a pass along the wall, Crosby wanted to go right back to the point with the puck, but a Predators penalty-killer had the lane clogged. Instead of forcing a pass that would surely be picked off, he deceptively slipped a pass to Patric Hornqvist playing in the bumper position. The puck was promptly one-touched back to Crosby, causing the closest Predators skater to stumble as they collapsed away from the point.
Crosby began to motion his way downhill, as if to shoot or try and get a deflection in traffic, but all he was doing was creating a bit more space up top. Once it was there, he changed his angle and sent the puck back to Schultz for a one-timer.
Bombs away. 1-0.
That was a lot of words to say: Crosby had a monumental impact on the Penguins taking an early lead.
His very next shift didn't result in a goal or a power-play opportunity, but it was a great example of why the Penguins spent the vast majority of his ice-time on the attack:
Thanks to his speed and tenacity, Crosby was the first one in on the forecheck. Thanks to an errant play from Pekka Rinne behind his net, Crosby suddenly had the puck on his stick with no one protecting the Nashville cage. Matt Irwin was barreling in on him, so Crosby threw the puck out front from his backhand in a hurry, which led to a decent look for Sheary.
The Predators nabbed possession after the shot, but Sheary's pursuit of the puck carrier and Crosby's angle forced the puck up the boards. Guentzel, who'd been hanging back with both of his linemates deep in the zone, stepped up on the Predators skater waiting for it along the wall. His pressure caused a less-than-stellar backward pass to Irwin. Crosby was all over it and prevented a clean reception.
Crosby instantly put himself in a position to shoot with the puck bobbling around, but Neal was able to fly in and take the puck away. Crosby did an outstanding job of staying with him and goading him to the outside, resulting in a bad pass out of the zone for the Penguins to regain possession.
That's the kind of intent and attention to detail regarding off-puck play that wins Stanley Cups.
A minute later, Crosby continued to be a menace with a dazzling pass reception between his legs and off his skate before dishing a cross-ice backhander for a look that got blocked:
I mean, come on. He was making the most of every single puck touch. And, by the way, all of this occurred in the first five-plus minutes of the game.
No, I'm not going to drag this out by going into excruciating detail on every single thing he did well for the remainder, but some things simply can't be excluded here, like this swift defensive-zone steal and clear at the end of a shift later in the first:
Or this insane pass reception to split two Predators in transition before eventually making an equally insane backhand pass to the backdoor for a Sheary goal:
Or this elite board play followed by a one-handed, backhand setup for a dangerous Guentzel one-timer:
Or this ridiculous between-the-legs pass under heavy pressure to spark a rush that led to a goal for Phil Kessel:
The 2017 Penguins were deep, but, man, it all started at the very top with Crosby. He was the example of how to play the game the right way.
Not that all of that video needs any data to supplement it, but just speaking to how dominant he was, the Penguins controlled a mammoth 85% of the expected goals during Crosby's full-strength ice-time in that game, which was his highest mark of the 2017 postseason. He was as dialed in as I've ever seen him.
It'd be a nearly impossible task to make an actual ranking of Crosby's best performances throughout his career, but this one has to be in the discussion.
