Crosby Needs One Point for Sixth Place All-Time — and Vegas Is Standing in the Way

The list does not bend for many people. Wayne Gretzky sits on top of the NHL's all-time scoring table with 2,857 points, and below him the names read like the sport's constitution: Jaromir Jagr (1,921), Mark Messier (1,887), Gordie Howe (1,850), Ron Francis (1,798). Tied for sixth, as of Saturday night in Montreal, are Marcel Dionne and Sidney Crosby, at 1,771 points apiece, according to the Penguins' official game preview. On Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena, one point — one goal, one assist, one secondary helper on a broken play — moves Crosby into sixth place by himself. The team standing between him and the moment is the Vegas Golden Knights.

Crosby got here the way he has done everything for 22 seasons: in a game his team lost, doing the work anyway. In Montreal on Saturday, he scored once and added two assists in a 5-4 defeat. The goal came with 3:11 left in the third period and goaltender Sergei Murashov pulled for an extra attacker, drawing Pittsburgh within one, per NHL.com's Sean Farrell. Earlier in the night, his 1,112th career assist moved him past Ray Bourque for the most assists with a single franchise in NHL history, according to the Associated Press. Josh Anderson's two goals and an assist won the game for Montreal, Jacob Fowler made 25 saves, and the Canadiens took their fifth straight — but the history in the building belonged to the visiting captain.

The tie with Dionne is a neat piece of symmetry. Dionne finished with more goals — 731 to Crosby's 658. Crosby has more assists — 1,113 to Dionne's 1,040. The gap is exactly 73 in both columns, in opposite directions, and the totals land on the same number. Dionne did it in 1,348 games over 18 seasons; Crosby has done it in 1,434 games over 22 seasons, every one of them for the franchise that drafted him first overall in 2005. He is 39 years old, and the teammates around him now include players who were children when he arrived. Defenseman Spencer Stastney, who was five when Crosby was drafted, said after the Montreal game, according to Heavy: "It's crazy. I grew up with a Fathead of him on my wall."

Sixth place is also not the ceiling of this conversation. Francis, in fifth, is 27 points ahead at 1,798 — a gap Crosby could plausibly close this season — and Howe's 1,850 in fourth is 79 points away, per The Hockey News. Nobody is catching Jagr, Messier or Gretzky, and nobody needs to. What Tuesday offers is rarer than a round number: a living player, in his 22nd season, passing a Hall of Famer on the sport's most hallowed list, at home, with the building fully aware of what one point means.

The obstacle arrives tired and annoyed. Vegas played Monday night in Boston and lost 3-2 in a shootout after rallying from 2-0 down — Mark Stone and Trevor Connelly scored, Mitch Marner assisted on both, and David Pastrnak beat Carter Hart for the only goal of the tiebreaker. The Golden Knights (9-5-2) are 1-3-2 in their past six after an 8-2 start, and their scoring has dried up with them: since Oct. 20 they have ranked near the bottom of the league at 2.17 goals per game, per PensBurgh's preview. Marner is the exception to the slump — points in 10 straight games, one goal and 14 assists — and captain Stone has 10 goals, including Monday's. Jack Eichel leads the team with 20 points.

The history between these teams this season is short and lopsided. Vegas won the first meeting 6-2 at T-Mobile Arena on Oct. 17, and Pittsburgh is playing to split the season series, per PensBurgh. Crosby's own history against Vegas is steadier than his team's: 13 points (six goals, seven assists) in 14 career games against the Golden Knights, including seven points in seven home games, according to the Penguins' preview. Kris Letang has eight assists in his last 10 games against Vegas, and forward Tommy Novak is expected to play his 300th NHL game. Pittsburgh will also wear its Hometown Remix jerseys for the first time, per the team's preview.

Pittsburgh needs the home version of itself to show up. The Penguins (5-7-2) are 4-1-1 at home and 1-6-1 on the road, a split that has defined their season; Saturday's loss in Montreal was their second straight defeat. Erik Karlsson leads the team with 16 points, 13 of them assists. Evgeni Malkin missed Monday's practice with a lower-body injury and is day-to-day, per the game previews — a genuine question mark next to Crosby in the lineup. Head coach Dan Muse pointed at defensive mistakes after the Montreal loss and said his goaltenders are being left in tough spots; Pittsburgh has scored enough to be interesting and defended loosely enough to be 5-7-2 anyway.

So the stage is set about as well as a Tuesday in November allows. A sellout building that knows the math. A captain one point from standing alone in sixth place on the all-time list, behind only Gretzky, Jagr, Messier, Howe and Francis. A visiting team on the second night of a back-to-back, sliding, but carrying the hottest playmaker in the league over the last two weeks. Puck drop is 7 p.m. ET at PPG Paints Arena. Crosby has made a career of collecting points in bunches and milestones in passing — do not be surprised if this one takes about one shift, and do not be surprised if Vegas makes him wait all night for it.