National Post (National Edition)
What does it take to become a hockey great?
Jim Rutherford is not sure if Sidney Crosby will win another scoring title.
Frankly, he’s not even sure if it’s a big deal for Crosby. But if you want to win a Stanley Cup, then the GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins believes that Crosby — and not Edmonton’s Connor Mcdavid or Toronto’s Auston Matthews — is the player you want on your team.
And Crosby has the Stanley Cup rings to prove it.
“What do you need to do to ultimately win?” asked Rutherford ahead of Thursday night’s game between the Penguins and the Maple Leafs at the Scotiabank Arena Toronto. “Is it going out every night and trying to get as many points as you can or is it about winning championships? To me, that’s what has to be factored in when you’re talking about the best.”
Before deciding who the best player in the league is, you first have to define what makes a player the best.
Does team success trump individual success? Are points in the regular season more important than points in the playoffs? To that end, is it more impressive to win back-to-back Conn Smythe Trophies or back-to-back Art Ross Trophies?
And can we even talk about Mcdavid and Matthews taking over Crosby’s crown when they haven’t yet won a championship, much less advanced past the second round of the playoffs?
“I don’t think it’s premature,” Rutherford said of the debate for the best player in the world. “You’re talking about two young great players (Mcdavid and Matthews) who are going to have great careers, and you’re talking about a great player who has already established his legacy and won championships. But I think it depends on what categories you’re looking at. Are you looking at skill level or goal-scoring or the overall team concept in winning championships?”
If it’s the former, there’s no question that Mcdavid — and perhaps Matthews as well — have surpassed Crosby as the NHL’S most productive player. But if it’s the latter, then there really is no debate.
“In my opinion, he is (the best),” said Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan, who won two Stanley Cups with Crosby in 2016 and 2017. “To me, it’s not even close,” said Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock, who coached Crosby to a pair of gold medals at the Olympics.
If you don’t think team success is linked with individual success, then you didn’t pay attention to the Hart Trophy vote last season. Part of the reason why McDavid wasn’t named league MVP was that the Edmonton Oilers failed to reach the playoffs. As for Matthews, who has entered the discussion for best in the world after starting the season with 10 goals and 16 points in his first seven games, he couldn’t lead the Leafs through the first round of the playoffs.
And then there’s Crosby, who’s won it all and done it all on a team that has missed the playoffs just once in the past 12 seasons. “This is what I think,” said Babcock. “I think one guy’s got two gold medals and three Stanley Cups.”
And the other two guys? “They don’t.” Maybe that changes in the next year or two. But until then, it’s hard to argue against a player who has a pair of Art Ross and Hart Trophies, in addition to three Stanley Cups.
“I think everyone is trying to get a piece of the torch,” said Toronto’s Nazem Kadri. “But the passing of the real torch is the Stanley Cup.”
The last time Crosby won the Art Ross Trophy was in 2013-14, when he scored 104 points in 80 games. In the four years since then, he hasn’t cracked the 90-point mark. Not that it matters much. At this point in his career, Crosby is measuring his success in ways that he might not have in the past.
So while he finished 19 points back of Mcdavid in the regular season scoring race, it’s worth mentioning that in the past three playoffs, he’s scored 67 points in 60 games. That’s 13 more than anybody else.
“It kind of started with Steve Yzerman where he was getting lots of points every year but the team wasn’t winning,” said Rutherford. “And that’s when he adjusted his game to be a better overall player and the team guy to win championships. And I see that as the same way with Sid.”
And yet, Crosby has not slipped into Jonathan Toews’ territory. He’s two years removed from winning the Rocket Richard Trophy with 44 goals and has finished outside the top-3 in scoring only once in the past five years. He also entered Thursday night’s game with four points — all assists — in his first five games.
“How old is Sid? Is he 31? He’s a pretty young guy,” said Babcock. “I saw Mcdavid play the other night and he had four points and he’s an absolute star. But these guys have done it forever, too. The measure in the end for all of us is we all want to have success. We want team success, because team success in the end is how you’re measured. So when you’ve been the best player on the best team, to me that’s totally different than being the best player on a team that’s not as good.”