Why Sidney Crosby’s current 10-game point streak is so impressive

Just another incredible accomplishment in an already incredible season for the Pittsburgh Penguins captain.

When Sidney Crosby scored the game-winning goal in the Pittsburgh Penguins 1-0 overtime win against the Ottawa Senators on Sunday evening, it extended his current point streak to 10 consecutive games. That is a big deal for a lot of reasons.

For one, a 10-game streak for any player, at any point, is always going to be impressive, because it is just simply really hard to consistently produce like that at the NHL level.

Effort is consistent. Process is consistent. Production is not.

Not even for the very best players. A 40-goal scorer does not score a goal every other game on a set schedule. An 82-point player does not get one point every night. They get six goals in five games, eight points in four games, and then go cold for a few games where they do not see the score sheet at all.

Just for context: There have only been 22 10-game point streaks in the NHL this season, with only two of them (Leon Draisaitl at 18 games and David Pastrnak at 17 games) going beyond 14 games.

Crosby has had 12 10-game streaks in his career, but only three of them have happened since the 2017-18 season.

This current streak is his first since an 11-game streak early in the 2023-24 season.

There is another layer to this that interested me just beyond a double-digit point streak. It is the fact he is doing it at 37 years old and still rolling along and defying all known aging curves in the NHL.

With that in mind, I wanted to take a look at how many times a player at this age put together a streak like this, and how long they were able to go.

Not surprisingly, there have not been many.

Via the Hockey-Reference StatHead database, there have only been 19 point streak of at least 10 games in NHL history by a player in their age 37 season or older. The longest streak is 12 games.

Here is the full list.

Only 11 of those streaks have reached at least 11 games. Crosby will have a chance to join that group against the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night, and if he does, he can potentially match that 12-game streak on Saturday in Dallas.

Crosby’s most recent game without a point was a 4-0 shutout loss against the Vegas Golden Knights. Prior to that point he had recorded a point in four consecutive games. He has just three games over the past 26 games where he has not recorded at least one point. During that stretch, which goes back to January 18, he has 33 points, which comes out to a point-per-game average of 1.27. Only seven players have averaged more since then.

Crosby has been the one consistent bright spot in this season from the very beginning. He is also not slowing down, even as the playoffs have slipped away and the rebuild really starts to kick into high gear. He just still consistently brings it every single game. It remains incredible to watch.