How Sidney Crosby won Game 2 for the Penguins

Sidney Crosby’s intelligence and ability to win face-offs gave the Penguins an overtime win over the Sharks in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.

There are many reasons why Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby is arguably the best player of this generation. Not only is he an extremely gifted player, he is also almost always the smartest guy on the ice. That combination allows him to help his team come through in big situations.

One of those situations happened during Game 2 after the Penguins got an offensive zone faceoff that led to Conor Sheary’s game winning goal in overtime.

Kris Letang, who played a huge role in the game winner as well, described how Crosby told him what to do.

"“He said he was going to win it to me, that’s it,” Letang said, via NHL.com. “He was going to win it to me and I had to find Sheary.”"

Letang isn’t being completely honest because there was a lot more that went into it. The first thing that Crosby did was tell Letang that he was going to win it to his left. This is important because Letang normally lines up on the right side of Crosby since Letang is right-handed.

Why did Crosby tell Letang to go to his left instead of his right? Because he realized that Sharks center Logan Couture had picked up on one of Crosby’s favorite moves to win the puck to his right. Crosby’s simple change allowed the game winning goal to happen.

He also told Sheary to do something that he had never done before. Sheary usually plays along the wall, but Crosby told him to drift towards the middle of the ice. He also told Letang to not shoot the puck, which sounds like a really bad thing to do since Letang owns one of the nastiest shots in the league. Letang trusted Crosby and it must have pained him to not shoot the puck. But trusting Crosby paid off.

So why did Crosby tell an awesome shooter to not shoot the puck? Like always, Crosby was playing chess while the Sharks were playing checkers. He realized that Couture was likely going to be trying to block any shot by Letang. That allowed Sheary to get open and allowed him to score.

On the scoresheet, Crosby will only get a secondary assist. But he deserves a heck of a lot more because he made that play happen. It simply doesn’t happen without Crosby’s awareness, brilliance, and obsession with perfection.

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