This kid just can’t catch a break. Pittsburgh Penguins center and captain Sidney Crosby is one of the best players, if not the best player, in the National Hockey League right now. Ever since he stepped onto the scene with the Penguins in 2005, Crosby has been one of the top scorers in the league. He has made veteran defensemen and goaltenders look silly, and appears to do it effortlessly. He tallied 100 points in four of his first seven NHL seasons, and has already won the Stanley Cup with the Penguins in 2012, won the MVP (Hart Memorial Trophy) in 2007 and was named the youngest team captain in NHL history, at the time, that same year.
The only blemish on Crosby’s resume at the moment, however, would be his injuries. Crosby is an amazing player, but the injuries that he has suffered in the past few years have prevented him from possibly reaching his fullest potential. Everyone remembers the concussion that Crosby suffered two season ago, which caused him to miss not only final 41 games of that season but 60 games last season as well. After returning from that injury, Crosby went on to score 37 points in 22 games in the 2011-2012 season; who knows how many he would have scored that season and the previous one if he was not sidelined for over a year with that concussion.
And, unfortunately, the injury bug has plagued Crosby again. In 36 games this season, Crosby has 15 goals and 56 points which leads the NHL; he was on pace to potentially win another MVP award, that is, until Saturday. Crosby left his game against the New York Islanders after taking a shot to the face by his teammate Chris Kunitz. He immediately was taken to the hospital, where it was discovered that he had a broken jaw and a few missing teeth. Crosby underwent surgery to repair the jaw on Sunday, and the Penguins announced that he will be out indefinitely. Once again, another injury shortened season for Sidney Crosby.
Now, there is speculation that Crosby will be ready for the playoffs, but this marks yet another season in which Crosby could not finish without getting severely injured. Granted, the Penguins have a plethora of players that can score for them, including Evgeni Malkin, Jerome Iginla newly acquired from the Calgary Flames and Kris Letang to name a few. But that does not mean they will not miss Crosby. Crosby provides another special spark that few other players in the league can provide for their team; it appears that whenever the Penguins need a goal desperately, Crosby somehow manages to find a way to get it done and deliver in the clutch. With his injury, the Penguins lose that spark and more pressure falls on Malkin and Iginla to step up their games and produce even more. The way Crosby was playing, he could have won the MVP award and potentially brought the Penguins another Stanley Cup championship. Although these hopes are still high even in his absence, I think the Penguins would much rather have Crosby healthy for both the rest of the season and the playoffs if possible in order to feel more comfortable about a potential Cup run.
One may think that it is hard to find another player who had such bad luck with injuries and had so much talent and promise throughout their careers in the NHL, but actually you wouldn’t have to search very far; in fact, you don’t even have to go to a different team. Crosby’s situation is eerily similar to that of one Mario Lemieux. The Penguins captain played with the team from 1984-2006, and he was incredible in his own right. In 915 games with the Penguins, Lemieux had 690 goals and 1,723 points; he was the only player to average more than two points a game and his .823 goal-scoring percentage is the best for players with 150 games or more played in their careers. Many people said that Lemieux had the tools and skills to be better than Wayne Gretzky, widely regarded as the greatest player to ever live; however, much like Crosby, Lemieux was plagued with being unable to stay on the ice consistently. Lemieux had terrible back problems and suffered from Hodgkin’s disease (a cancer of the lymph nodes), which forced him to sit out the 1994-95 season and eventually forced him into early retirement. He tried to come back and play in the early 2000s and although he did put up impressive numbers, he was never the same and his play was severely hampered by all of the injuries that plagued him throughout his playing career.
Mario Lemieux had the potential to be the greatest player to ever live, but injuries prevented him from having the long and healthy career that Gretzky had. Now, it appears that young Sidney Crosby is going down the same path. Many people felt that when Crosby came up he could be known as the greatest player to ever play the game of hockey, but his concussion and latest jaw injury have set him back much like it did Lemieux. Two great Penguins captains, both sidelined by injuries that prevented them from playing as many games as they would have liked. For Crosby it is not over yet, because unlike Lemieux his injuries have not crippled him when he has returned from them. However, how long will his jaw take to heal, and what if he gets another concussion? These are unfortunate questions that both Crosby and the Penguins have to ask themselves, as they watch yet another one of their great player plagued with injury.