Crosby carries Canada to brink of World Cup title

TORONTO — Sidney Crosby has been surrounded by the best hockey players on the planet at the World Cup of Hockey, and still seems as if he is in a class by himself.

“He’s probably the best player of our generation,” Canada goaltender Carey Price said.

The Pittsburgh Penguins superstar has a World Cuphigh nine points — two more than anyone else — and is within a win of adding another accomplishment to his Hockey Hall of Fameready resume. Canada will play Team Europe in Game 2 tonight, leading the bestof-three series 1-0.

The eight-nation European team has been led lately by Tomas Tatar, who scored his team’s only goal in a 3-1 loss Tuesday night. The Slovakian forward scored twice, including the winner, in a 3-2 overtime victory over Sweden in the semifinals Sunday.

Tatar, who plays for the Detroit Red Wings, acknowledged he is inspired by Crosby’s greatness. And he knows slowing Crosby is a key to forcing a Game 3 on Saturday night.

“I’m not saying one guy should be standing by him, but we should be always aware of where he is on the ice,” Tatar said.

Crosby has been much more effective than he was in his last best-on-best tournament appearance. He had only one goal and two assists at the 2014 Sochi Games, where he won his second Olympic gold medal.

In the World Cup opener against the Czech Republic alone, he produced as many points with a goal and two assists in a sensational stretch of the game that lasted less than 20 minutes.

Crosby insisted he could not care less that he has already tripled the number of points he had in Russia.

“I just want to win,” he said. “At the end of the day, that’s what you want to do. In Sochi, it was more about why weren’t we scoring, low-scoring games, and the teams we were playing we’re supposed to be winning by a certain amount of goals.

“At the end of the day, we were winning games. It’s always nice to score, but we knew that we had to play a certain way and sometimes that meant not scoring five or six to win.”

Late Tuesday: Brad Marchand and Steven Stamkos scored in the first period in Canada’s 3-1 victory in Game 1.

Patrice Bergeron’s goal midway through the third period created a two-goal cushion, and Carey Price finished with 32 saves for the Canadians.