Best Penguins By Jersey Number: #87

The Pittsburgh Penguins’ organizational history has a plethora of great players, and we’ve decided to go through the best Penguins’ players to wear each jersey number. Today, we continue the list by naming the best #87 in Penguins’ history.

An intro is hardly necessary for this one.

The best and only #87 in Penguins history is one-of-one: Sidney Crosby.

Crosby’s history with the Penguins is well-documented at this point, so we’ll just cover some basics. The phenom from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia was drafted first overall in the 2005 NHL Draft by the Penguins, who won the draft lottery in order to have the opportunity to draft a player who, as a kid, was touted “The Next One” by Wayne Gretzky – “The Great One” – himself.

And one of the things that is so special – and rare – about Crosby is how quickly he met and exceeded expectations. Not many rookies throughout NHL history have been able to put up over 100 points in Year One – three total, to be exact – and Crosby’s 102 points in his 2005-06 rookie season make him one of those players, as well as the youngest in NHL history ever to reach the mark.

The only others? Gretzky and Dave Hawerchuk.

He rose to new heights quickly, too. He won the Art Ross Trophy, the Lester B. Pearson (now Ted Lindsay) Award, and the Hart Trophy in his sophomore season, when he put up 36 goals and 120 points and led the Penguins to the playoffs for the first time since 2000-01. The league started to take notice of Crosby’s unmatched playmaking ability, edgework, ridiculous backhand, smarts, and vision.

And over the next two years, all of those skills – as well as his leadership – helped him lead the Penguins to the Stanley Cup Final in subsequent seasons. The Penguins were runners-up in 2008, but in 2009, Crosby became the youngest captain in NHL history to hoist the Stanley Cup at 21 years old – a record that still stands to this day.

But darker days loomed ahead. Smack-dab in the middle of the prime of his career, Crosby missed significant time between 2011-13 due to concussions and other injury issues. During that span, he missed over 100 games, likely missing out on around 150-170 points.

Following those dark years – for both Crosby and for the Penguins – Crosby continued to score highlight-reel goals and led the Penguins to back-to-back championships in 2016 and 2017 – and they remain the only team in the cap era to go back-to-back in full-length seasons.

He led the team in playoff points over those two runs with 46 in 48 games and took home the Conn Smythe Trophy in both seasons.

Nearly a decade later – at age 37 – Crosby finds himself on an aging team beginning to turn the page, but he’s also reaching rarified air. He scored his 600th goal against the Utah Hockey Club on Nov. 23 – becoming just the 21st player in NHL history to do so – and, recently, he broke Pittsburgh’s all-time assists record previously set by Mario Lemieux.

He also just entered the top-nine all-time in NHL scoring when he surpassed Joe Sakic against the Edmonton Oilers on Jan. 9. And this season, Crosby is vying for his 20th consecutive point-per-game season, which would break Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record of 19.

A three-time Stanley Cup Champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time Conn Smythe winner, two-time Hart winner, world champion, and so much more, Crosby’s storied NHL career is far from over. Already sitting at 604 goals and 1,644 points, his legacy with the Pittsburgh Penguins – and the National Hockey League – will cement itself even further as “Sid the Kid” continues to etch his name into the hockey history books.