Sidney Crosby’s sweet scoring touch against the Sharks

Sidney Crosby is off to a remarkable scoring rate. He missed the Penguins first six games with a concussion, and since returning to the lineup, he has scored 8 goals in the 6 games that he has played. That’s good, in my opinion.

Both goals that he scored last night in the Penguins 5-0 win against the San Jose Sharks were very much "Sidney Crosby goals." The first was a Lemieux-esque goal from the other side of the goal line, and the other was a one-handed goal that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen happen that way. Let’s take a look at both of them.

Crosby gives the Penguins a 2-0 lead from Lemieux’s Office

Late in the first period, with a 1-0 lead, the Penguins were trying to cycle the puck in the offensive zone.

Sidney Crosby doubled that lead with a goal that was reminiscent of those that Mario Lemieux scored for many years.

It started with Carl Hagelin trying to cycle the puck deep to Conor Sheary.

As Sheary stepped up to play the puck, the Sharks defender took a good line to the puck, cutting off Sheary’s ability to get it deep. As Hagelin realized Sheary wasn’t going to be able to cycle it further to the corner, he started moving towards the puck as well.

Hagelin takes a shot/pass towards the net, where Sidney Crosby is circling back to get into the play.

Crosby makes his first ridiculous play in the sequence, knocking the puck out of mid-air and down to the ice, right to himself in the scoring area. It’s never a good thing for an opponent when Crosby has the puck by himself in front of the net.

Crosby uses his lower-body strength to push around Martin Jones, looking for the far post, and Jones defends it well.

Crosby may have lost that battle but he still won the war. He exercised immense patience, just waiting out Jones, and as he got around the corner and past the red line, he just bounced it off of Jones’ pad/skate and into the net. Ridiculous skill.

This is just fascinating to see how he pulled this off. Look how close the puck was to the net and the angles that Crosby was working with. That’s wild.

Crosby scores his second of the night, this time with a silly one-handed goal

Just 12 seconds into the second period, the Penguins lead jumped from 2-0 to 3-0 thanks to a Sidney Crosby goal; one of the likes that I don’t recall ever seeing.

My god, how quickly an innocent dump-in from the neutral zone can turn into offense and a goal just because of a little bit of pressure.

Right off of the faceoff, Carl Hagelin goes after a loose puck and chips it towards the Sharks defensive zone. I don’t think he was trying to create offense as much as he was trying to clear the puck deep.

As Marc-Edouard Vlasic (who played like a gigantic pissbaby last night) went back to retrieve it, Crosby was pressuring him on the other side of the puck.

As Vlasic goes to play the puck, he turns to his right, where Crosby is in his lane. He could’ve turned to his left, but I assume he sensed/knew of the pressure coming from Patric Hornqvist and wanted to to avoid that.

At the exact time that Vlasic played the puck, Crosby puts his stick on the ice with one hand and pushes it towards the net.

We all had the same reaction. "Really? Did he just do that?" Yes, he did. Vlasic and Jones couldn’t believe it. Jones was yanked from the game as a result.

Just like the first goal, this one is remarkable in part just because of the angles involved. To play that puck with one hand and have it go right inside the post with the perfect amount of speed and everything, it’s just crazy.

Taking that lead from 2-0 to 3-0 really felt like it opened up the game and set the Penguins in position for the win. This was even more true as they scored their 4th goal and 5th goal.

With 8 goals scored in 6 games for Crosby, even including having missed six games himself, he’s still on pace for over 100 goals this season. Yes, this is absolutely going to happen and is not at all unrealistic. Not at all.