November 22, 2011, Sidney Crosby's triumphant return column for HockeyPrimeTime.com

Crosby's return a triumphant one

Features

Written by Denis Gorman

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 01:31

Sidney Crosby returned to action Monday night after missing the last 61 regular season games. It was just one game, but Crosby's debut spoke volumes about his commitment and importance to the game. Dear Sid, Welcome back. It has been a long time since you’ve skated in an NHL game. Three hundred twenty days to be exact since you last dressed for your employer, the Pittsburgh Penguins, before Monday night’s 5-0 rout of the New York Islanders. You had not played in 61 regular season games spanning the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons, and your team's seven-game playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, due to post-concussion symptoms. Remember those two headache-inducing checks, by David Steckel and Victor Hedman, in the span of four days? When your 2010-11 season ended, you had 32 goals, 34 assists and 66 points. That works out to 0.78 goals, 0.829 assists and 1.609 points per game. Had you continued at that pace and played a full 82-game schedule, you would have finished with 64 goals, 68 assists and 132 points. Those numbers would have won you the Rocket Richard and Art Ross Trophies, and the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award, for the second time in your career. When you stepped onto the ice, the Consol Energy Center transformed from a state-of-the-art arena into cacophonous cavern of joyous sound. Bedlam ensued when you flipped your patented backhander over Islanders goaltender Anders Nilsson 5:24 into the game. Oh, it was also to be the game-winning goal. Eleven minutes and five seconds after that, you set up Brooks Orpik for a slap-shot goal. After one period, you had a goal and an assist, and were plus-2. You finished with two goals, two assists, four points and were a plus-3 in 15:54 while taking eight shots on goal in 21 shifts. Oh, and you were the first star. Do you remember your last goal? Actually, you scored twice in a 6-3 win over the Atlanta Thrashers on December 28, 2010. Yeah, they don't exist anymore. No one who saw what you did the night of November 21, 2011, will ever forget it. Your playoff statistics are equally startling. Thirty goals, 52 assists and 82 points in 62 games. You’re plus-22, have scored 99 power-play goals and five game-winning goals. We haven’t yet mentioned your consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearances, one Cup and one Olympic gold medal-winning goal. (Your country won't let you forget the latter. Ever.) The day after the win over the Thrashers last season, you and your teammates were inside a decaying building known as the Nassau County Veterans Memorial Coliseum, preparing for that night’s match against the Islanders. You were in the midst of a 50-points-in-25-games-streak, which prompted HockeyPrimeTime.com to ask coach Dan Bylsma if you had progressed to the point where you needed slights, real or imagined, to continue to improve. Your coach's response: “It will be a challenge for him to find out how to keep working on his game. That’s probably his strength as an athlete. You can talk about his skating ability and his skill. But probably his best thing is his desire and need to improve and get better in his game. He does that in obvious ways: faceoffs and did that with his shot two summers ago. But he also does it in a lot of little areas that are a little bit harder to notice. But he’s doing them every day in practice. That’s really his best asset as a player and keeps showing up in his game. As a result, you see him do things in practice and see him translate that right into success in the game.” Who would know how much you have improved on the game’s details more than the man who has coached you since the end of the 2008-09 season? And who would have guessed on this night, as dominant as you were offensively, you would be equally brilliant (14 of 21) in the faceoff circle? That you would be credited with a hit and a blocked shot, a complete effort from a player whose legend is in the game’s minutiae? Before you authored one of your trademark big game performances, just stepping onto the ice made for a storybook moment. What came next, in that city and in that building, was nothing short of historic. No one who saw what you did the night of November 21, 2011, will ever forget it. Welcome back, Sid. On Twitter: @HockeyPrimeTime and @DenisGorman

Last Updated on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 02:51

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