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As is often written here, but never gets old — one of the coolest things about this stage of the careers of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin is while they might not be at their peaks and competing for scoring titles and league MVPs anymore, they’re still crossing so many impressive career milestones.
Malkin hit 1,100 NHL points two weeks ago and Crosby already notched a memorable 1,000th game last month. Tonight Crosby notched career point 1,300 in the third period on an empty net assist for Jake Guentzel to seal a 4-0 win over the Buffalo Sabres. It was Crosby’s third assist of the game.
As he usually does, Crosby stacks up well against the all-time greats of the sport for speed to get to 1,300 and he’s the quickest player of his era to get there.
Ever heard of any of these guys? pic.twitter.com/U0slcL0pUL
— PensBurgh (@Pensburgh) March 26, 2021
“It’s a nice number,” Crosby said after the game. “I wasn’t thinking about it at the time. Tonight was a big game and we were just focused on getting a win. I guess it’s a sign I’ve been playing for a pretty long time too. It’s always nice to get those milestones.”
Crosby is the 36th player in NHL history to record 1,300 points, and the 20th center in league history to get to this mark.
Looking at the high-scoring period of the game’s history, Crosby stands out even more in that context.
NHL's been around for more than 100 years. There is soon to be 36 players with 1300 career points.
— Corey Masisak (@cmasisak22) March 26, 2021
28 of them played at least two seasons of their careers between 1983-1994
Other 8 are Esposito, Howe, Mikita and Buyck plus Ovechkin, Crosby, Thornton and Iginla.
Crosby’s next major career mark to chase is 500 goals, he currently has 475. Another clutch mark within reach is 200 career playoff points (he’s at 189 now), which would boost him up from 8th place where he currently is in NHL career playoff scoring up to 6th all-time.
The more games that go by, the more impressive marks that Sidney Crosby puts under his belt. 1,300 is just another milestone to fly by as the 33-year old looks like he has a lot of great hockey in him with 37 points in 33 games so far in this 2020-21 season, which ranks first in the Eastern division that the Pens are playing in.