Various milestones that Penguin players are approaching

History beckons

Given that a major function of the current iteration of the Pittsburgh Penguins is to relish in enjoying individual milestones for their long-time players, a pause in the action with a two-day break enables us to look at some upcoming events.

Sidney Crosby

597 goals

Crosby is rocketing towards with 600 mark after scoring four goals in the last two games. It’ll be interesting to see if he hits a bump and stalls for a few games once he gets to 599 or can push right through it.

1,013 assists

Crosby is three assists away from tying Joe Sakic for 13th place all-time in NHL career assists. Crosby is getting within shouting distance for Mario Lemieux’s career total (1,033), which will be the first major statistic that Crosby breaks of Lemieux’s marks.

Assists with one franchise

A somewhat obscure NHL record, but a cool one that Crosby could own before it’s all said and done. He’s less than 100 assists away from breaking the mark currently held by Ray Bourque for most assists by a player for a single franchise.

Team Player Assists
BOS Ray Bourque 1,111
EDM Wayne Gretzky 1,086
DET Steve Yzerman 1,063
PIT Mario Lemieux 1,033
DET Gordie Howe 1,023
COL Joe Sakic 1,016
PIT Sidney Crosby 1,013

419 even strength goals

Not the biggest item, but the Penguins sent this graphic that we found amusing so we’re going to share it. This was before the Montreal game, so the 5v5 goal he scored on Saturday put him past Luc Robitaille.

475 multi-point games

Crosby’s pair of points against Montreal draws him within two multi-points games from Steve Yzerman for seventh place all-time. This will be another area that Crosby should pass Lemieux in the relative near future, with the disclaimer that Sid is nearing 1,300 games in his career and Mario only played 915.

Player Multi-Point Games

Wayne Gretzky 824
Jaromir Jagr 540
Marcel Dionne 513
Mark Messier 513
Gordie Howe 511
Mario Lemieux 497
Steve Yzerman 477
Sidney Crosby 475

93 career game-winning goals

Crosby scored what counted as the game-winning goal against Montreal, his second GWG in as many games. He’s now tied for 14th all-time in this category with Joe Nieuwendyk and Sergei Fedorov. Sid’s next GWG will tie him for 13th with Steve Yzerman.

Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang

This is another obscure but still pretty cool area. Letang assisted on Crosby’s power play goal on Saturday to mark the 305th goal that both players have factored in on over their long careers. That’s the third most all-time for a forward+defenseman combination, and only one away from tying into second.

Teams Forward Defenseman Goals

EDM/LAK Wayne Gretzky Paul Coffey 350
BOS Phil Esposito Bobby Orr 306
PIT Sidney Crosby Kris Letang 305
LAK Anze Kopitar Drew Doughty 304

Erik Karlsson

Karlsson is working his way up the all-time point scorers for defensemen and in some serious company. He just passed Red Kelly this week and Doug Wilson is up next.

Rank Defenseman PTS

15 Gary Suter 844
16 Doug Wilson 827
17 Erik Karlsson 825
18 Red Kelly 823
19 Sergei Gonchar 811