Sidney Crosby's Superstar Moment Comes at Perfect Time for Penguins in OT Win

The Pittsburgh Penguins were excellent on Monday night, taking an early lead and generally dominating play against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In the end, it was just barely enough, as the Pens managed to win by a 3-2 score in overtime, with team captain Sidney Crosby scoring the decisive goal.

It is difficult to overstate just how important that goal was.

Pittsburgh has, without question, been the better team in the series through two games. The Penguins outshot Tampa Bay 35-20 in Game 1 and managed to better that total in Game 2, ultimately holding a 41-21 shooting advantage. Lightning backup Andrei Vasilevskiy has outdueled Pittsburgh goaltender Matt Murray, but otherwise the series has been weighted in the Penguins' favour.

Being the better team isn’t good enough, though. Goaltending was the difference in the first game and it almost decided the second, and without Monday’s victory, Pittsburgh would have faced the ugly prospect of heading into the enemy’s building down 2-0 in the series.

That’s bad enough, but with Anton Stralman back playing and Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston reporting Steven Stamkos is now participating fully in team practices, there’s a real possibility the Lightning are only going to get better.

Crosby’s goal prevented that and also went some distance toward shifting the narrative about his own play.

The truth is, Crosby has been pretty good in the playoffs. On Monday, the Penguins had a 16-5 edge in even-strength shots when he was on the ice, and throughout the postseason, they have dominated territorial play when he's been out there. He’s also just one point shy of a point-per-game pace in the postseason; for virtually any other player in the world, that would be extremely respectable production.

It doesn’t matter that even the most renowned playoff heroes go through slumps. One recent example is from 2013, when en route to a Stanley Cup win, Jonathan Toews recorded just nine points in his first 20 games for the Blackhawks. It didn’t matter that his possession stats were awesome or that he was taking on tough assignments; people expect superstars to score.

NBC analyst and former player Jeremy Roenick went so far as to compare Crosby’s effort unfavourably to that of Lightning forward Jonathan Drouin:

It’s going to be harder to make those kinds of comments about the Pittsburgh captain now. If there was any question on that point, Pens winger Patric Hornqvist erased it in his postgame comments to Johnston:

While Hornqvist’s comments show at least some Penguins pay attention to how Crosby is treated in the media, a cuddlier press is decidedly a side benefit of the goal. Pittsburgh has been winning with Crosby playing well but scoring at a sub-Crosbian pace; if he starts filling the net, the Pens are going to be even tougher to beat.

In that vein, it’s worth noting Crosby now has two points in two third-round games. He fired six shots on Monday; his previous high in this postseason was just three. He was physically engaged, too, throwing five hits in the contest.

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

It’s also significant that Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan shuffled Crosby’s line as the game went on, occasionally going away from what has become his usual partnership with Conor Sheary and instead subbing in old confederate Chris Kunitz. In the overtime period, Crosby was out with Bryan Rust and Matt Cullen, with Rust picking up the primary assist on his goal.

The series between these two clubs is now a best-of-five, with the Lightning holding home-ice advantage, which will allow Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper to have more control over line matchups, though it’s not clear exactly what he can change.

Not only did Crosby score against his top defence pairing of Stralman and Victor Hedman, but Phil Kessel and Pittsburgh’s “third” line scored again, too. It’s going to be an interesting challenge for one of the game’s most highly regarded young coaches.

Doubtless, Cooper would feel better about that task if his team had a series lead and some margin for error. Thanks to Crosby’s goal, Tampa Bay doesn’t have that luxury.

Statistics courtesy of NHL.com, Natural Stat Trick and Corsica Hockey.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.