Sidney Crosby Moves Closer to Penguins History - and Keeps Dominating the Flyers While He’s At It
Sidney Crosby is inching closer to yet another milestone in a career already packed with them. The Penguins captain is now just seven points shy of tying Mario Lemieux’s franchise record for most regular-season points - a mark that once felt untouchable in Pittsburgh.
Crosby already holds the combined regular and postseason points record, but this one? This one carries a little extra weight.
Lemieux isn’t just another name in the record book - he’s the icon Crosby grew up idolizing, the man who once signed his paychecks, and the face of the franchise Crosby has helped redefine.
So, has Lemieux reached out with a heads-up or a congratulations as Crosby creeps closer to passing him?
“No,” Crosby said with a slight smile. “I'm sure he knows me well enough to know that's not something I really want to talk about.
Just go out there and play. If it happens, it happens.”
And make no mistake - it will happen. Sooner rather than later.
On Monday night, Crosby added two more tallies to his ever-growing total, scoring his 58th and 59th career goals against the Flyers in a 5-1 Penguins win. That’s not a typo.
Crosby has now racked up 59 goals and 137 points in 92 games against Philadelphia - the most any opponent has ever posted against the Flyers in their history. And while the Flyers tried to crank up the “Keystone Rivalry” energy in the building, the boos raining down every time Crosby touched the puck only seemed to fuel him.
At 38 years old, Crosby is still doing what he’s always done: rising to the occasion, especially when it’s Philly on the other bench. He’s scored 18 goals so far this season and remains firmly in the mix for the league lead - trailing only Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Boston’s Morgan Geekie, who each have 20.
But Monday wasn’t just about the stats. It was about the response.
Coming off a rough 7-2 loss to Toronto, the Penguins needed a bounce-back game. And Crosby set the tone early.
He opened the scoring with his 60th career road game-opening goal, then added a power-play strike in the second to put Pittsburgh ahead for good. It was a vintage Crosby performance - calculated, clinical, and completely in control.
“When you have a game like that, you just want to respond, regardless of who you're playing,” Crosby said.
The Penguins, once one of the early surprises of the season, have come back down to earth. After holding the top spot in the Metropolitan Division just a month in, a brutal November stretch - seven losses in nine games - has them now tied with the Flyers at 31 points. Only Chicago and San Jose entered the season with longer odds to make a playoff run, and while the Pens are still in the mix, the margin for error is razor-thin.
Still, as long as Crosby is in the lineup, there’s reason to watch. His No. 87 jersey was everywhere in the crowd Monday night - even in enemy territory. And while the Flyers haven’t hoisted the Cup since 1975, and Crosby has three rings of his own, he’s never taken the rivalry lightly.
“It’s always been a rivalry, long before I played here,” he said. “These games, you always know there’s a little more intensity, a little more to them. You just try to prepare accordingly.”
Of course, Crosby has never prepared - or played - like just anyone else.
Even his teammates, who see the work he puts in every day, are still in awe.
“It shows you what kind of exceptional player and person that he is, to never be satisfied with anything,” said Bryan Rust, who chipped in a goal and two assists in the win. “Everything he's done at a team level, at an individual level, on and off the ice. It'd be easy to kind of start to pull back the reins a little bit, but I think it’s almost fueling him to get more and more.”
So while the Penguins figure out who they are this season - contender, spoiler, or something in between - Crosby keeps pushing forward, chasing greatness, record by record.
And when he finally passes Lemieux on the all-time points list?
Well, don’t expect a big celebration from No. 87. He’ll probably just get ready for the next game.