I don't know at what point I stopped disliking Sidney Crosby. I certainly never hated him. Despite playing for a divisional rival of my Devils, we never played the Crosby Pens in the playoffs - and actually generally had good success against them in the regular season. I didn't like Crosby for the reasons lots of hockey fans didn't like him: he was a little too entitled, a little too whiny, and a lot too good.
Over time, though, I grew to realize just how spectacularly talented he was, and also how that coupled with his teams failings in the playoffs (save for, you know, winning the Cup in 2009) made him quite similar to my favorite athlete ever: one Peyton Manning.
Yes, I know I try to shoehorn Peyton into every discussion (I will make no such apology when I shamelessly do this during the upcoming Peyton-less NFL season), but the comparison is apt. Crosby like Peyton was the most talented player of his era. Crosby, like Peyton, combined that talent with a peerless work ethic and general sacrifice and example setting that all sports fans should embrace. Crosby never got that embrace - and somehow despite winning a Stanley Cup early in his career (his 4th season) over the years become the face of the Penguins continued playoff failures.
We shouldn't feel bad for Sidney, a well compensated player who could always deflect the highest of criticisms because he did have that ring on his finger - but Peyton can easily show you just how much deflection a ring can bring: not as much as you would think. The Penguins had some spectacular flame-outs over the years, like their 2012 meltdown against Philadelphia (a series highlighted by an 8-3 game three loss where his teammates ran around headhunting), or in 2013 when they were swept aside by Boston - a series highlighted with the two captains getting into an argument that was capped with the great visual of Zdeno Chara literally bending down to meet Crosby face-to-face. The next year, the Penguins blew a 3-1 series lead to the Rangers. At this point, Crosby had no real leeway left.
Much like Peyton, it was never really Crosby's fault. His brilliance carried lesser line-mates to great regular season success, but when teams could gameplan, and defenses got better, and referees started swallowing whistles, the lack of depth the Penguins routinely brought into series was exposed. It was never really Crosby's fault. It was never Manning's fault. In the end, they both got that second ring when no one expected.
Sidney Crosby is the best player of this generation, someone whom great expectations were placed on from the time he was a kid in Juniors. The NHL draft lottery was created literally because of Crosby's brilliance - his draft year was following the lockout, so the NHL instituted a draft that the Penguins 'won'. He was a franchise savior - and he truly was. By his second season, Crosby was the league's MVP, scoring 120 points in 79 games. The only thing keeping him away from adding more MVPs early in his career was injuries. In the 2010-11 season (66 points in 41 games), 2011-12 season (37 points in 22 games), Crosby was by far the league's best player but concussions kept him from playing 60% of those seasons. He finally got healthy, and his team got good again, and the rest is history.
Sidney Crosby's brilliance is, in a way, as inexplicable as Manning's from a physical standpoint. He is far from the best skater, or hardest shooter, but he is the best passer and sees the ice like no player since prime Jaromir Jagr. Crosby was a dominant force in these playoffs, and while it translated to less points than most would have expected, his ability to control the puck and lay waste to the opposing top lines he was routinely pitted against was a key factor to the Penguins defensive success.
A study of the Penguins 2016 Stanley Cup Title would lend itself to a lot of subjects that played large roles aside from Crosby. The famed HBK line picked up the scoring slack when Crosby's line struggled against Washington. Rookie goaltender Matt Murray was great, undefeated after losses. The defense somehow kept strong despite losing Trevor Daley in the Conference Finals. The team committed staggeringly few penalties - neutering the Sharks key advantage. Coach Mike Sullivan pushed all the right buttons, and much mocked GM Jim Rutherford pulled the strings to supplement his stars with, for once, depth and young talent. It all blended together to create a scarily efficient team.
Much like with Manning, it took getting a great team around him to bring him back to glory, but that is present in hockey as much as it is in any sport. Even the 'goalie who stands on his head' rarely actually wins the Cup (see JS Giguere in 2003 losing to the Devils - a far deeper, better roster). One great player can only do so much, but that shouldn't take away from how much Crosby has done, did do and, hopefuly, will continue to do. Two days after the NHL lost one of its greatest players, this era's greatest got the one thing he needed most to be rightly compared to the legends of hockey: that second Cup.
