Sidney Crosby getting closer to breaking Wayne Gretzky record

The 2024-25 season has not gone as Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins might have hoped from a team success standpoint. But Crosby, even at 37 years old, remains one of the league's best players and is closing in on a milestone that would have him break a longstanding Wayne Gretzky record. 

Thanks to his two assists on Sunday in their 4-3 shootout loss to the Florida Panthers, Crosby is now up to 78 points in his first 70 games this season. 

That means he is just two points away from securing what would be his 20th season averaging at least a point-per-game in the NHL (because he missed two games this season the most games he can play is 80, meaning he only needs 80 points to secure a point-per-game average).

That set an NHL record for most point-per-game seasons, breaking what is a tie with Gretzky for the most in NHL history.

Crosby has never averaged less than a point per game in any one season in his career, a testament not only to his dominance as a player but also his overwhelming consistency to never really slow down.

What makes Crosby's consistency so amazing, especially in relation to Gretzky, is that Crosby played the bulk of his career in one of the lowest-scoring eras in NHL history. That was especially true in the late 2000s and early 2010s when only a handful of players ever reached a point-per-game level in a season. Gretzky, meanwhile, played in one of the highest-scoring eras in league history when there were usually dozens of players each year reaching that mark.

That is not to discredit Gretzky. It is just a testament to how great Crosby has been relative to his era.