A favorite new year tradition around here, let’s take a look at what Sidney Crosby did in the previous calendar year. It was another remarkable trip around the sun for Crosby on the hockey rink; what else is new, right? We can’t even be surprised at this point and yet it still ends up stunning for how he keeps on chugging along and just where he has ended up until you step back, take a look and appreciate it. Crosby put up an amazing 2025, he only scored more goals in three other calendar years (2010, 2016 and 2022) than he was able to score this past year.
Crosby’s year also included winning the 4 Nations Face-off with Canada, headlined the NHL’s Quarter Century team, and oh yeah, passed Mario Lemieux for the most points in franchise history with the Penguins. Just another year for the goat.
As always, the consistency of Crosby is something to marvel at. He scored 1.14 points/game in 2025, virtually identical to the 1.15 that he produced in calendar 2024. That number is right in-line with the 1.16 points/game Crosby averaged from 2019-23. In short, that goes to confirm what you probably already knew: Crosby isn’t slowing down (well, I guess you can’t hold a .01 decrease against him) and was as productive this past year as he has been throughout the majority of his 30’s. In addition to that, Crosby was able to not just score at impressive rates, he also put in another strong year with availability. The Pens’ captain appeared in 79 out of the 81 games the team played in the year of 2025, missing only two games in February with an arm injury.
Just how he got to his scoring levels in 2025 is perhaps more intriguing and notable: the assist numbers were down to the lowest levels since his injury years of 2011 and 2012 (not counting the 2020 COVID year), but he’s picked it right back up by scoring the goals himself. Crosby is no longer in firm control as the focal point on the power play and able to rack up a ton of assists like that, the special part has been his shift into scoring more goals himself. That would be remarkable at any age, when we’re talking a 37-38 year old that’s in his 21st season of NHL competition it becomes even more impressive and borderline unreal to consider that a player can keep chugging along at such a high level so very deep into his career. Then again, what else would you expect?
Crosby entered the calendar year of 2025 in 10th place on the NHL’s scoring list, as mentioned above he’s up to eighth now after passing Joe Sakic and Lemieux. There’s more on the horizon, Crosby has set himself up well within striking distance of current 5th place Ron Francis (71 points ahead at 1,798), with six and seventh spots of Marcel Dionne and Steve Yzerman becoming closer with just about every game played (Yzerman is currently 28 points ahead, Dionne 44).
It’ll take beyond 2026 but looking at the big picture Crosby has moved within 200 points (194 to be exact) of matching second place Jaromir Jagr’s career point total. Should Sid decide to play even one more season beyond his current contract in 2027-28 and find a way to stay somewhat close to current scoring rates, Jagr and second place is looking very much within the realm of possibilities with another couple of 90ish point calendar years. That’s stunning yet still a realistic proposition given current outputs of the past few years.
Which means as time goes on it’s looking like a foregone conclusion for Crosby staking his claim to get on hockey’s Mount Rushmore with his relentless ascent in the point standings, as if it wasn’t already taking clear enough shape with his wide array of achievements.
Add in the Olympic opportunity coming up in Italy next month and 2026 could be yet another banner year in the unbelievably stout career of Crosby to continue to add more notches to his belt as he continues a historic journey.
