Analyzing Crosby's Rookie Season Penalty Total
Was Crosby a Pest? A Diver? Or Were Teams Really Penalizing Him?
Sidney Crosby spent his rookie campaign developing a reputation as both a rookie-superstar-phenom as well as a player who isn’t opposed to expressing his discontent to the refs. In 2005/06, Putting up 102 points as an 18-year-old put him 6th in the league in scoring, just behind names like Hart-winning Joe Thornton, Calder-winning Alex Ovechkin, and 50in07 (he also did it in 06) Dany Heatley. For players who remained 18 years old the entire season, only 1981’s Dale Hawerchuk had a higher point total (103 points to Crosby’s 102) albeit in a higher-scoring era.
The point of this article isn’t to talk about how excellent Crosby was as a rookie - he was excellent to be clear - this article is going to go into detail on the penalty data on Crosby’s season. Due to the Bruins, Islanders, Lightning, Panthers, and Blues arenas not having detailed penalty information in that 2005/06 season - there aren’t standardized cumulations of penalty-drawn data.
A lack of penalty-drawn data can influence how people perceive PIMs as a stat. Matthew Tkachuk in the 2022/23 season, for example, had 123 PIMS on 37 penalties taken, a number fewer than the 39 penalties he drew throughout the season giving him a +2 net penalty differential. Rookie Crosby has never had the luxury of accessible net penalty data for his rookie year to bring his PIM total into a different perspective.
Net Penalty Data for Crosby’s Rookie Year to Bring His PIM Total Into a Different Perspective
I tallied every game of Crosby’s rookie year to figure out what penalties he took and what penalties got taken on him. To start, Sid had 55 minor penalties and no game misconducts, a surprisingly high total. For context, this season, Brad Marchand had the highest number of minor penalties without a major or misconduct with just 37.
The most important standout from this data is that Crosby hooked more than anything else at 11 minor penalties from hooking throughout the season. This, along with #3 and #4 on this list, is in line with the 2005/06 rule changes for officials to have a zero-tolerance policy on hooking, interference, and holding respectively. Other standouts from this list are the single count of diving and the single count of abuse of officials.
Immediately, the hooking, holding, and roughing penalties stand out with 19, 15, and 10 respectively. While the refs were certainly calling more of those penalties that year, Crosby’s opponents were likely too slow (causing them to hook), not agile enough (causing them to hold), and a little pissed at how Crosby was acting on the ice (causing them to rough).
The most important thing to note from this list, however, is that he actually drew 66 minor penalties throughout the course of the season - 11 more than he took, giving him a +11 net penalty differential. What’s even more impressive is that this is missing the data from 10 games in arenas that didn’t tally who was penalized on a play. His 66 drawn penalties in 70 games can be, through a rudimentary and not very accurate measurement, extrapolated to 76 penalties drawn throughout the season (66/70 * 81 (Games Played)) which would give Sid a +21 net penalties, a total that would rank him 5th in the NHL in the 2022/23 season.
The more you would like for this data to be refined, the more caveats you can apply to it. Crosby drawing 76 penalties over the course of a season would be the highest total since this stat has been cumulatively & formally tracked, barely edging out Dustin Brown’s ridiculous 2010 campaign where he drew 75 penalties. However, ultimately, it makes sense how high his total is. Via HockeyReference.com, In the 2005/06 season, there were 5.85 powerplay opportunities (PPO) per game, a figure that dwarfs the current 3.07 PPOs per game in the 2022/23 season. Crosby having a ridiculous PIM and drawn penalty total makes sense, teams were taking a lot more penalties back then.
If you put a blanket over that total and applied the modern per-game average, Crosby would have taken 29 penalties, drawn 40, and had a net penalty differential of +11 - a campaign reminiscent of David Pastrnak’s 2022/23 season.
So. As the subtitle asks, is Crosby a pest? Well… no. Despite his PIM total, he wasn’t a Matthew Tkachuk or Max Domi-level pest that terrorizes the other team after the whistle. While the game he played wasn’t clean, it certainly wasn’t dirty. He took careless penalties and a lot more were taken on him. He was an 18-year-old who was given the task of carrying a franchise without any legitimate help. Ultimately he succeeded in that role, winning a Stanley Cup at 21 years old - the youngest cup-winning-captain in league history.
