Updating Sidney Crosby’s stats in calendar year for 2021

Building off of what we did last year, here’s a look at Sidney Crosby per calendar year (note: NOT by season) to update with 2021 stats. This risks leaving off the Ottawa game scheduled for 12/31, hopefully there will be one more game added to the 2021 ledger!

Crosby entered 2021 in 39th place all-time in NHL scoring and was able to navigate his way up to 30th place all-time by the end of this year. We’re getting to the point now where every player passed is a legendary Hall of Famer, and Sid could well pass Mats Sundin, Guy Lafleur and Brendan Shanahan in points by the end of the 2021-22 regular season alone.

Should Crosby have a 2021-type output in 2022, he will be in 18th or 19th place in all-time this time next year, and pass even more legends like Brett Hull, Jarri Kurri, Mike Modano, Dale Hawerchuk, among other luminaries in the cross-hairs as Crosby continues his climb in the record books.

2021 individually for Sid ended up being pretty productive, even though it was filled with frustrations like missing time with COVID and an off-season wrist surgery to clean up a nagging issue that has been bugging him at times for years. Crosby’s 73 games in 2021 are his most in four calendar years — and importantly for climbing up the charts — his 52 assists were the second most he’s had in the last eight years.

There are only three players in NHL history to have a point-per game in each of their first 15 seasons: Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, Sidney Crosby. That’s as elite of a grouping in hockey as you can get, and Crosby currently has 18 points (4G+14A) in 18 games in 2021-22 as he looks to make it a 16th straight season of being a point+.

Interestingly there, Lemieux had nine points in 10 games in his 16th season, so if Sid does end up a point+ in 2021-22, he’ll join Gretzky as the only players to have a point+ for 16 years running. Wayne accomplished the feat in his first 19 NHL seasons, before scoring 62 points in 70 games in his 20th and final season.

At the end of the year it’s always good to look back and recognize this run we’re witnessing with Crosby putting his name higher and higher all-time in the record books, even without going down the “what if” avenue to imagine how much higher he would currently be if not for missing so much time. Crosby celebrated his 1000th career game in 2021, taking him 14+ seasons to get there. But get there he did and just about every goal and point continues to push him that much higher among the all-time greats of the sport.