Sidney Crosby is Darn Good

Over his last 82 games played since early in the 2010/11 season Sidney Crosby has scored 46 goals and 91 assists for 137 points. These three seasons represent Crosby's 23, 24 and 25 year-old seasons. In an interesting comparison, over the same age seasons of their careers, Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky scored at only slightly higher rates.

Interestingly while Crosby has to this point played the equivalent of one full season in his age 23, 24, 25 seasons, Lemieux in the same seasons played 158 games or two full seasons. Gretzky, in his age 23, 24, 25 seasons played 234 games or three full seasons. The scoring totals for each in these respective seasons are as follows:

Crosby, Lemieux, Gretzky in their Age 23, 24 & 25 seasons (GP-G-A-Pts)

Crosby         82-46-91-137

Lemieux   158-149-218-367
Avg.             79-75-109-186

Gretzky    234-212-416-628
Avg.             78-71-139-210


Of course the league scoring rates have fluctuated dramatically over the years. In the three years in question for Gretzky the scoring average was close to 8 goals per game. In Lemieux's three years in question the average was 7.25 and in Crosby's last three years the league scoring average has been 5.55 per game. Equalizing all three seasons to 8.00 the average season of each is (G-A-Pts):

Crosby   66-130-196
Lemieux 83-120-203
Gretzky  72-142-214

Three very similar scoring rates. It just displays exactly how impressive Crosby has been both before and after his concussion problems.





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