Morning Skate: Sidney Crosby is still the NHL’s toothless king

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Lace ‘em up. Time for the Morning Skate.

It was only a matter of time until Connor McDavid blossomed into a superstar. (He basically started that in his rookie year.) And we all knew that when he did, he’d probably run away with the Hart Trophy discussion.

And for a few months, he did. A 19-year-old led the NHL in points for most of the season.

Lately, though, the “Next Next One” has ceded the spotlight to the “Next One.” It seems like we’ve taken Sidney Crosby’s greatness for granted all these years. Especially since we were all so quick to embrace McDavid as the guy you needed to watch every night.

But Crosby is still special, and he’s done one hell of a job stealing that spotlight away from McDavid this season. His Penguins clinched their 11th straight playoff berth yesterday in a game where Crosby was at his most electric. And feisty.

He speared Ryan O’Reilly in the groin, lost a tooth during a dust-up with Evander Kane, and scored one of the most incredible goals you’ll ever see.

All while hitting the 41-goal mark for the first time since 2009-10 ... when he finished third in Hart Trophy voting behind Alex Ovechkin and Henrik Sedin.

Something tells me he’s going to win this year, putting off Connor McDavid’s ascendance for another year like only Sidney Crosby can.

With the trade deadline behind us, our latest NHL mock draft changed considerably.

But that’s not the only reason. The truth is, there’s no Auston Matthews or McDavid this year. Just three consensus best players in an otherwise weak draft and a bunch of teams with different needs. Oh, and an expansion team tossed into the top four picks.

Intrigue!

Not many of them are working out, guys. And the ones that are aren’t the ones you’d expect.

The real winners of the trade deadline might be the teams that didn’t do anything. Sorry for yelling at you, Avalanche.

Keith Tkachuk’s son inherited all of his traits: skill, grit, and a “hard to play against” attitude that drives opponents nuts.

It finally caught up to him this week. Tkachuk got his first suspension and his first rebuke from an NHL vet when Drew Doughty called him a dirty player.

I love watching Tkachuk. He’s pure energy, and does a ton of little things right that few rookies master so quickly. In any other year he’d be on the Calder Trophy radar. But he needs to mature and learn from this suspension to reach his full potential. I don’t doubt he will.

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