The Pittsburgh Penguins, in pursuit of the first Stanley Cup three-peat since the early 1980's, are on the verge of once again advancing out of the first round of the postseason after their latest win Wednesday night. The Penguins defeated the Flyers 5-0 at Wells Fargo Center to take a 3-1 series lead, the third lopsided Pittsburgh win in four games. Sans the Flyers punching back with a 5-1 victory on the road in Game 2, the Penguins have outscored Philadelphia 17-1 in the other three games.
The Penguins have made scoring look quite easy at times, and perhaps no play illuminated that more than Sidney Crosby's goal Wednesday night to give Pittsburgh a 4-0 lead (Crosby can make the difficult look more simple, but this was a bit different). And in scoring, Crosby also reached another milestone.
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The goal was the Penguins' captain's second point of the night; he also assisted on an Evgeni Malkin power-play goal in the first period. The two points, bringing his postseason career total up to 173, surpassing Mario Lemieux as the Penguins franchise leader in playoff scoring.
GOAL! CROSBY! He knocks it in from behind the net. The #Pens lead 4-0 with 9:04 left in the 2nd period.
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) April 19, 2018
Oh, and did we mention... Sid now has the most playoff points in franchise history? pic.twitter.com/FPVqlMOHMK
The Penguins have reached the playoffs in 12 of Crosby's 13 NHL seasons (thanks in large to No. 87) and have also played deep into many of those postseasons. (Crosby also missed the 2010-11 playoffs due to injury.) He reached the feat in his 152nd career playoff game (a 1.14 point per-game clip) while Lemieux's playoff resume was put together in 107 games (a 1.61 point per-game pace).
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Crosby is now 17th all-time on the NHL's postseason scoring list, and his nine points in the four games to open the first round have also seen him pass Denis Potvin and Peter Forsberg. The 30-year-old forward could continue to climb up that list in 2018; Steve Yzerman, who ranks 10th all-time in playoff scoring, has a 12 point edge on Crosby right now.
He still has a long way to go in passing the overall leader, which to the surprise of no one is Wayne Gretzky. Over his illustrious career, Gretzky recorded 382 playoff points in 208 postseason games, 87 better than second place Mark Messier.