AND STILL THE KID

Sidney Crosby is having one of those seasons that defies expectation and age. Go ahead. Check the numbers.

At the NHL’s All-Star festivities up in Toronto a couple of weeks ago, one thing seemed to leave many of the best hockey players on the planet in total awe.

Well, besides Justin Bieber’s cartoonishly large coat and fellow celebrity coach Michael Buble announcing he was as high as the CN Tower on mushrooms.

No, we are talking about the fact that Sidney Crosby — a player some AllStars idolized when they were in elementary school — is still going strong at age 36.

“It’s unbelievable,” marveled Buffalo blue-liner Rasmus Dahlin. “Playing against him, it doesn’t feel like he’s aged a year since I came into the league [in 2018].”

The Hart Trophy buzz for Crosby died down recently with the Penguins sliding back down the standings. But the captain’s play this season remains incredible. Are we watching the greatest season ever by an NHL player aged 36 or older?

To attempt to answer that question, we used Stathead’s adjusted points metric to compare Crosby to those who preceded him. That factors in the era in which a particular season took place to level the playing field statistically, since goals were far more frequent in the wide-open 1970s than, say, the dead-puck era.

Entering Friday, Crosby had piled up 54 points, putting him on track to finish the season with an adjusted points total of 86. That would rank 16th in NHL history among all players who were at least 36 years old as of Jan. 31 that season.

Martin St. Louis posted the highest single-season adjusted point total of all time. His 114 adjusted points in 2012-13 were well ahead of Bill Cook, who is second with 104 in the 1932-33 season. Rounding out the top five years for a 36-plus player are Wayne Gretzky (103), Mario Lemieux (102) and Joe Sakic (102).

When you look at the adjusted goal total based on the era in which they played, only three players rank ahead of Crosby, who is on pace for 48 adjusted goals. That trio is Cook (50), Teemu Selanne (50) and Alex Ovechkin (49).

(As an aside, I will admit I was not familiar with Cook until I did this exercise. He didn’t debut in the upstart NHL until age 30 and had 228 goals in 475 games.)

Narrowing it down to even-strength goals, Crosby could become just the fourth with more than 30 when adjusting for era. One was Joey Mullen in 199394.

At least in terms of pure goal-scoring, we can conclude that if Crosby keeps this up, this will go down as one of the best years ever for a dude in his late 30s.

Of course, goals and points aren’t everything when gauging a player’s value, particularly a center. Defensive play is important, and faceoffs are also a factor.

“We played them [Jan. 11] and he was the best player on the ice,” Rick Tocchet, the Canucks’ coach, said in Toronto. “He was incredible. Sid’s game is as good as it’s been. ... His approach to the game, I’ve never seen an athlete like that.”

We can try to capture his all-around impact with Stathead’s point shares metric. That isn’t perfect. But, similar to WAR in baseball, it pulls in a bunch of data to calculate how many points in the standings for which one player was responsible.

Crosby is on pace for a point share of 11.6. That’s better than he had in his stellar 2022-23 season and would rank seventh all time among players 36 and older.

So perhaps others that age were somehow more impactful, but at least by some measures Crosby is still in the midst of one of the 10 greatest seasons ever.

OK, what about recent history? Have any modern NHLers compared to Crosby?

Surely, you haven’t forgotten what Ovechkin accomplished just two years ago.

Impressively, Crosby’s longtime rival buried 50 goals in his age-36 season and became just the ninth 36-plus player in NHL history to notch at least 90 points.

Ovechkin’s expected goals share at 5-on-5 pales in comparison to what Crosby has done this season. But Ovi’s 9.4 offensive point share total was outstanding as he pushed the 2021-22 Capitals to a 100-point season and a playoff berth.

Crosby has another 31 games to pad his resume and bolster his case against Ovechkin and some of the greatest greybeards in NHL history. But it’s already an amazing campaign for Crosby, still one of the best players in hockey at 36.

Just ask the other All-Stars who were in Toronto alongside the ageless wonder.

“He was one of my childhood idols growing up,” said Cale Makar, the Colorado defenseman and possible Norris Trophy winner. “To see the level that he’s still playing at, it’s pretty incredible. It seems like he’s got another 10 years in him.”