Sidney Crosby: The Art of Poise

Sidney Crosby has obviously continued to emphasize why he is consistently one of the best players in the NHL, and as a veteran in this league now, he's continued to showcase his skillset and all-around ability at 36 years old. Last night against the Canucks, Crosby became the 9th player in NHL history to reach 1,000 even-strength points, and the 4th fastest to do so:

1. Wayne Gretzky (608 games)
2. Marcel Dionne (1,143 games)
3. Jaromir Jagr (1,165 games)
4. Sidney Crosby (1,246 games)

The staple of Crosby's game is his consistency, but also his all-around ability. His natural, unwavering poise in off-ice and on-ice situations as a leader and the main play driver of the Penguins factors through his on-ice poise. By leveraging his hockey sense and proactive brain, his ability to slow play down on the ice allows him to control the game at an elite level. For players who play the game with less hockey sense, the game moves much faster. Other players who bring that component of elite hockey sense is factored through their ability to slow the game down to how they want to manipulate the game.

With Crosby, we don't necessarily see a ton of flashiness, but we see a lot of that sense and recognition of how to slow play down in order to find the next play. This could be with the puck or with his off-puck movement, in order to put himself in favorable situations based on his instincts.

Penguins/Canucks Highlights

Directly at the start of the highlight reel here, we see that Crosby swings low off a D-to-D pass, with strong side winger support on the half wall from Reilly Smith, and Crosby swinging low to support as that swinging center. We see the instant poise has on Crosby's route timing, his puck support, his ability to stay between checks, and how he gains subtle speed using crossovers to gain momentum on the breakout. From there, Crosby gets the puck at his feet, but doesn't panic and calmly moves the puck to his forehand from his feet.

He attacks on the wall since he is forced to stay in a straight-line route here, veers inside the dot lane on entry, and delivers a good weight transfer on his shot here. Demko plays the line rush situation aggressively here, and Brock Boeser on the backcheck here slightly cut off Crosby's angle to get a shot off here. Ideally, Crosby would've wanted to either weight transfer off one foot and look to get the puck in a more suitable spot to his side to load his front leg, or he could've looked to freeze Demko with deception to try and score in tight on him. Either way, Crosby maintains poise all the way through the weight transfer on his shot, calmly generating an offensive zone draw out of this situation.

Next we look at 2:47, where the Penguins start in a line rush for situation up ice. Crosby is outside the dot lane and moves the puck inside the dots to Rakell. Crosby gets gapped up well by Ian Cole here, using crossovers, keeping his stick and shoulders angled well to Crosby, which would've slowed Crosby down into dead ice here in the neutral zone. Crosby recognized that immediately, looked to find that inside lane, and did so with poise and by keeping the puck flat on ice for Rakell to handle.

From there, Crosby slightly drifts away from the play on the entry, still maintaining focus on Rakell and his route, but veering away so Ian Cole cannot play him man-on-man in this scenario. Crosby stays between his checks, and then rotates down to the end wall to try and support Rakell on a potential rim around. Nothing happens here, as the puck tries to get worked high, and then gets poked to the mid-slot. Crosby's positioning, awareness, and calmness allowed him to find slot positioning on his instincts, and he only needs two strides to get to this puck.

All Crosby does from here is calmly tap the puck cross-seam to Rakell, and Rakell delivers with a nice hook shot to get around a sprawling Demko here.

Lastly is 3:43 here, as we see the Penguins on a power play sequence, and this was perhaps the most notable poised element of Crosby's game here. Right away, he veers away from the play, recognizing that puck was going to get rimmed around on entry. He was quiet about it, but proactive about it, so he sneaks to the half wall area in order to retrieve this puck. Right away, before he retrieves this puck, he does two key things:

1. He pre-scans, shoulder checking once over both shoulders
2. Recognizing where the space is, he doesn't forcefully rim this puck around again, as he instead touches it back to Malkin on the point

Two very simple details, but the way Crosby executed them here allows him to maintain his poise in the situation. By pre-scanning, he is understanding the surrounding ice over both his shoulders. When I retrieve this puck, do I rim it back? Do I handle it on the wall and lure the defender to me? If there's a point guy nearby, do I touch it back to him in space? Do I get off the wall immediately and attack?

Pre-scanning is a simple habit, going back to a recent article with Nikita Kucherov and Mikhail Sergachev included, where doing so allows the player to understand the surrounding situation. Crosby pre-scanning here gives him information in a short time to proactively decide what he wants to do on his next play. Because of that, that opened up the touch up play back to Malkin on the point. Some players would've looked to rim this puck around, or panic when making the decision, because they don't have the sense and poise to understand the surrounding ice proactively.

The touch up play back to the point opens up Malkin's ability to attack downhill, with Crosby lurking between his checks. He skates down to the corner without the puck, so Vancouver would forget about him here, and then he veers off to the far side dot by cutting across the slot. This opens up a pass lane for Malkin to find Crosby, and from here it's all Crosby's poise once again.

Crosby uses multiple quick stickhandles, freezes Demko with deception as if he was going to shoot, and then calmly delivers a backdoor pass to Rickard Rakell. Both of Crosby's assists yesterday were primary ones on both Rakell goals.

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