Sidney Crosby ranked ninth by NHL Network’s Top 50 players

Sidney Crosby checked in at ninth on NHL Network’s countdown of the top 50 players.

Three-time Stanley Cup champion and Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby ranked ninth on NHL Network’s countdown Top 50 Players Right Now, ranking the best players in the National Hockey League, yesterday evening. The two-time Hart Memorial Trophy winner finished one spot ahead of All-Star Mikko Rantanen of the Colorado Avalanche and one spot behind four-time All-Star Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning. In addition to Crosby, teammate Erik Karlsson ranked 29^th on the Top 50 Players Right Now countdown two weeks ago.

NHL Network’s Tony Luftman, Mike Johnson and Mike Rupp counted down the 1-50 best players based on player performance over the past several seasons, with an emphasis on the 2022-2023 regular season and 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Future performance was also taken into consideration by NHL Network researchers, producers, analysts and hosts when determining the final ranking.

On last night’s countdown, Johnson said of Crosby, “I think he might’ve been one of the first guys that the current generation of stars look to and say, ‘He added something to his game every summer.’”

Here was the final list that the network produced.

Crosby ends up as the eighth highest forward, and fifth ranked true center in the league. At age 36 that stands up to show how impressive he has been late in his career. Crosby will be looking to move up to as high as 10th place all time in NHL scoring and could be going to 1,000 career assists this season while looking to tie the Wayne Gretzky record of 19 straight seasons of playing at or above a point per game.