Sidney Crosby won't complain about his linemates, so Mike Brophy will do it for him.
Have you taken a peek at the NHL's scoring leaders today? Where's Sidney Crosby?
He's not leading the league in scoring, and not even in the top 10. Or top 20, for that matter.
Whoops, there he is... down, down, down. He's No. 23 squeezed between sophomore centre Steven Stamkos at No. 22 and Dallas Stars winger Loui Eriksson.
This is just not right.
How can the player chosen No. 1 by sportsnet.ca in our pre-season survey of the top 50 players in the NHL have just six goals and 11 points in 11 games? He's on pace for just 82 points this season. Ouch!
Now with his Pittsburgh Penguins off to an amazing start, tied for first overall with a 9-2-0-0 record, Sid the Kid is hardly going to complain about his personal predicament. So please allow me to do it for him.
Get him some better linemates!
With all due respect to veterans Bill Guerin and Chris Kunitz, they should not be riding shotgun with Sid the Kid. Both are quality players who have proven time and again they have what it takes to contribute to a championship team. At the end of the day, that's what really is most important.
But the ride needs to be fun, too. And Sidney Crosby is no ordinary schmuck. He's the face of the NHL. He's a guy who, in the off-season, delivers season tickets right to the doors of Penguins fans. He gives up plenty of his personal time to sell the game for his team and his league.
It must kill him to see his nemesis Alexander Ovechkin playing on a line with Nicklas Backstrom or Dany Heatley skating with Joe Thornton. Anze Kopitar has climbed to the top of the NHL scoring race thanks to the arrival of veteran left winger Ryan Smyth on his line.
Crosby does have the good fortune to spend a good portion of each game playing on the power play, as well as the occasional 5-on-5 shift, with fellow superstar Evgeni Malkin, but for the most part they play on different lines. The Penguins like to spread the scoring around a bit.
In the meantime, Guerin has a respectable three goals and six points in 11 games, but Kunitz has been snakebitten thus far with no goals. Both are probably better suited to the second or third line.
In terms of goals, Crosby has actually matched his high for the first 11 games in a season, set in 2006-07. That year, though, he had 18 points in that span. His 11 points is the lowest for his first 11 games out of the chute in his five-year NHL career.
Crosby was at his dynamic best Friday night in a 3-2 win over the Florida Panthers when he scored three goals, including the shootout winner. He also managed his first career shorthanded goal in the game. It was vintage Sidney Crosby.
For now, don't expect Penguins GM Ray Shero to do anything drastic in terms of acquiring new linemates for his star. The Penguins' payroll is at $56.4 million and they have just $576,000 in cap space left. If Shero makes a move to find more skilled wingers who might actually add something to Crosby's game, it will be at the trade deadline.
For now, Crosby will continue to do the best he can, a surgeon playing between two plumbers.
HEAD SHOTS The NHL made the right call in not suspending Philadelphia Flyers centre Mike Richards for his monster hit on Florida's David Booth. It was a legal hit with a very unfortunate result.
Richards was already committed to the hit when Booth got rid of the puck and there was no turning back. End of story.
Or is it?
Seems to me the league said a few years ago headshots were an issue and something the league was hoping to reduce, if not eliminate altogether. Don't know about you, but I haven't seen any signs of a crackdown in headshots.
That said, it will be one of the things on the agenda when the league's general managers meet in Toronto Nov. 10-11. Also to be discussed are playing pucks off the net, fighting, interpretation of slashes and crease crashing.
STARS STRUGGLING It's nice to see some fresh blood among the NHL's leading scorers, but that leads us to the obvious: where are the usual suspects? A number of players accustomed to putting up big numbers have struggled out of the gate.
The list includes two-thirds of the best line in the league last season, Ryan Getzlaf and Bobby Ryan. Each has just one goal in eight games.
Going into Monday night, the league's goalless club includes: Nik Antropov, Derek Roy, Sergei Samsonov, Pavel Datsyuk, Jason Spezza and Simon Gagne while one-goal scorers include Jonathan Toews, Henrik Zetterberg, Owen Nolan and Vinny Lecavalier.