Crosby makes a good Penguins team truly great




But look at the replay again. Look at it through the eyes of coach Dan Bylsma, and you see it was more than that. You see the real reason why Crosby’s comeback from a concussion makes the New Sidney Crosby Pittsburgh Penguins jersey a better team.
This is what Bylsma saw: The play starts in the defensive end. Deryk Engelland quickly sends the puck up the strong-side wall, and Pascal Dupuis passes it from the left wing to the middle at about the red line. Crosby has been gathering speed, expecting the puck, planning to catch his opponents flat-footed.
The finish was world class, the goal a signature moment as Crosby returned with two goals and two assists Monday night in a 5-0 victory over the New York Islanders. But the sequence that set up the scoring chance is simply part of the Penguins’ system.
It’s no secret, and it doesn’t always work. The St. Louis Blues game-planned against it Wednesday night, took away the strong-side wall and beat the Penguins in overtime, 3-2. Crosby had no points and six penalty minutes. But more often than not, the Penguins’ way is effective – and most effective with No. 87.
“You talk about how we play,” Bylsma said. “You talk about how we execute. It didn’t change [Monday] night. It looks a little different with Cheap Youth Sidney Crosby  jersey speed through the middle of the ice.”
To understand how well the Penguins can play with Crosby, go back to how well they played without him. They went 34-19-8 in the 61 regular-season games he missed.
Now go even deeper than that. When Crosby came back Monday night, it was only the third time in 103 regular-season games that the Penguins had their top three centermen in the lineup at the same time.
The Penguins were one of the best teams in the NHL the first half of last season, winning 12 games in a row at one point, all without Jordan Staal. Just as Staal came back from injury, Crosby went down. Evgeni Malkin went down not long afterward.
Injuries continued to decimate the Penguins. They had the top seven scorers from their farm team in the lineup at one point. Their first-line right winger was Nick Johnson, now the third-line right winger on the Minnesota Wild.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve dressed better teams in exhibition – even on the road,” said general manager Ray Shero.
Still, the Penguins finished with 106 points, tied for second-most in the Eastern Conference. They blew a 3-1 series lead and lost to the cheap Tampa Bay Lightning jersey in the first round of the playoffs, but they feel they might have won had Matt Cooke not gotten himself suspended for a head shot.
The Penguins kept winning despite a drop in scoring. Fleury played great in goal, and they didn’t change their approach in front of him.
“It was funny last year. People were always saying, ‘Are you playing more defensive now?’ ” said defenseman Brooks Orpik. “To be honest, it was the exact same system, the exact same game plan. You realized [Crosby and Malkin] weren’t there. Nobody said anything, but you knew if we were giving up three goals a game, now you have to give up two. We didn’t change the system. We didn’t go back to a trap or anything or do anything differently. We just kept playing the same way.”
Bylsma even kidded Crosby and Malkin at one point when things were going well, asking the two superstars – both of whom have won NHL scoring titles – if they thought they could fit into the system when they returned.
“To have long-term success in this league, to try to build this thing up, you can’t be about one or two players,” Shero said. “To win a Cup, you need the support around them, and when you look back, when we had some success there and won a Cup, it was our role players who were fantastic.”
Remember: It was Max Talbot, not Crosby or Malkin, who scored both goals in the Penguins’ 2-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings in Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup final. Talbot plays for cheap NHL jerseys the rival Philadelphia Flyers now, but as Crosby’s comeback approached, he knew the effect his former teammate would have on his former team.