Sidney Crosby comes into the Pittsburgh Penguins’ home game against the Ottawa Senators on Saturday as the ninth-leading point producer in NHL history.
Crosby had a goal and two assists in Thursday night’s 5-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers to pass Joe Sakic on the all-time points list. Crosby has 1,643 points (604 goals, 1,039 assists) to surpass Sakic (1,641). Next on the list at No. 8 is Penguins’ legend and minority owner Mario Lemieux with 1,723 points.
“I’m running out of superlatives,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said of Crosby, 37, who is in his 20th season. “What he’s accomplishing, first of all, his body of work in the league, his legacy that has been built to this point, speaks for itself. He’s the consummate pro. He just represents our sport, the league, the Pittsburgh Penguins in such a great way.
“He just carries himself with so much grace and humility and integrity. And he’s a fierce competitor on the ice.”
Crosby leads the Penguins with 47 points (12 goals, 35 assists) in 43 games.
Thursday’s win snapped Pittsburgh’s four-game losing streak.
Goals by Rickard Rakell, Bryan Rust — who also had two assists — and Kevin Hayes gave the Penguins a 3-0 lead less than 10 minutes into the game.
“It feels good when we do that, that’s for sure,” Rust said. “I think for us, that was our goal, to be on our toes, be all over them, be on top of them, because they’re very fast, a skilled team.”
Drew O’Connor also scored for Pittsburgh and Alex Nedeljkovic made 40 saves.
Meanwhile, the Senators are also on a four-game losing streak after a 4-0 home loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night.
The team was booed off the ice after the game, which was its first home contest since Dec. 14, when the Senators embarked on a nine-game road trip while the International Ice Hockey Federation 2025 World Junior Championship was played at their home arena.
“We’ve been gone for a long time now, and we talked about it before the game,” forward Josh Norris said. “We wanted to come out and have a good game in front of our fans. It’s been a while, and yeah, it (stinks) that we didn’t do that for them.”
The Senators have been outscored 15-4 during their four-game skid and are 1-5-1 in their last seven.
“It just wasn’t good,” said Senators’ defenseman Thomas Chabot, who was minus-4. “There’s no way around it. Nobody can hide behind anything. From top to bottom, the whole team just was not good enough. Simple as that.”
Ottawa trailed 4-0 after two periods and goaltender Anton Forsberg stopped 17 shots.
“Fans want us to win,” Senators coach Travis Green said. “You never like to hear boos, but they’re passionate and pay good money to come to the game and want us to win. Again, when you look at the game, like really step away and look at it, I don’t really believe it was a 4-0 game where another team was all over us. It was far from that, but there were some plays that you can’t make, and teams are going to make you pay the price.”
–Field Level Media
