Sidney Crosby notched two more points (2A) Sunday night in Florida, stretching his point streak to seven games. The captain's active seven-game point streak is tied for the league lead. Dating back to March 9, the forward is tied for first in points (12) across all skaters.
Crosby now sits just two points away from clinching his 20th point-per-game season, which would surpass Wayne Gretzky (19) for the most in NHL history.
Crosby has scored on 156 different goaltenders in the regular season throughout his 20-year career. Included in those 156 netminders is Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, who Crosby has tallied six of his 617 career goals against. There are only four other active goalies that Crosby has scored more goals against than Vasilevskiy.
Per NHLPR, only five players in NHL history have scored on more individual goalies than Crosby, who’s one new netminder away from tying Ron Francis for the fourth most.
Erik Karlsson ranks first among team defensemen and fourth overall with 50 points (10G-40A) this season. He currently sits two points away from tying Markus Naslund for the ninth-most points by a Swedish-born player.
Overall, the blueliner has points in 14 of his last 20 games, which includes a season-long seven-game point streak that ran from Jan. 29-Feb. 23. Since Jan. 29, Karlsson is tied for fifth in points among defensemen.
Karlsson enters tonight's game just one goal shy of reaching the 200-goal plateau. Among active blueliners, Karlsson’s 199 career goals rank second in the NHL.
Among Swedish-born defensemen, only Nicklas Lidstrom (264) has more career goals than Karlsson.
Evgeni Malkin has 12 points (6G-6A) in 16 games since returning from the 4 Nations break. The forward is just one assist shy of tying Anze Kopitar and Henrik Sedin (830) for the 12th-most assists with one franchise in NHL history.
Vs. TBL
Defenseman Kris Letang has 42 points (6G-36A) in 48 career games versus Tampa Bay. He has more points against the Lightning than any other non-Metropolitan Division team. Letang and teammate Erik Karlsson (43) are fourth and third in NHL history for points by a defenseman against the Lightning, respectively.
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have both found success in their careers against the Lightning. Crosby (51GP, 24G-43A) and Malkin (48GP, 29G-35A) rank fifth and eighth in the NHL in scoring against Tampa Bay in NHL history.
Only Alex Ovechkin (51) has more goals against the Lightning than Malkin (29) and Crosby (24) among active players. Crosby is also on a 10-game point streak (5G-9A) against Tampa Bay, which is the longest such streak in the NHL.
Quick Hits
1) Tristan Jarry is 6-4-1 with a 2.54 goals-against average, a .920 save percentage and one goal in 11 career games against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Only three goalies in NHL history have more career points against the Lightning than Jarry’s two (1G-1A) – Olie Kolzig (4A), Martin Brodeur (3A) and Henrik Lundqvist (3A).
2) Rickard Rakell has eight goals and 13 points (8G-5A) in 19 career games against the Tampa Bay Lightning. He has goals in each of his last two games against them (2G-1A).
3) Bryan Rust is one of just five players in the Sidney Crosby Era (2005-Present) to have three or more 25-goal campaigns with Pittsburgh. He is joined by Crosby (15), Evgeni Malkin (12), Jake Guentzel (3) and Phil Kessel (3).
4) The Penguins are 5-1-1 in their last seven games. During that span dating back to March 9, Pittsburgh’s power play has operated at a 31.3% success rate (5-for-16).
5) The Penguins own an overall record of 404-92-50 when both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin record a point in a game.
