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Yesterday at 11:43 AM

We are one month away from Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid sharing the ice as teammates for the first time at the 4 Nations Face-Off but before we get to that, the two best players in the world will go head-to-head again on Sportsnet.

Thursday’s clash in Pittsburgh will be the 15th meeting between the two generational superstars and the second this season after a 4-0 October win by the Edmonton Oilers.

These two teams arrive at this game heading in opposite directions with the Oilers on a four-game winning streak and the Penguins on a four-game losing streak (with the last three requiring overtime). The Oilers are second in the Pacific and gaining ground on the Vegas Golden Knights while the Penguins are tied for the final wild-card spot in the crowded basement of the Eastern Conference.

Ahead of the next must-see matchup between these two future Hall of Famers, let’s take a look at their seasons and careers so far.

Stats courtesy: Hockey Reference.com and NHL.com.

This season

Crosby, now in his 20th year, has been scoring at nearly a point-per-game basis all season but the goals have dried up in recent weeks. He scored his 600th career goal on Nov. 23, but he has only found the back of the net three times in the 19 games since. Crosby still has 20 assists over that span, but expect him to be extra motivated to score against the Oilers tonight.

McDavid missed three games around Halloween with an ankle injury but was off to a slow start by his standards before that with 10 points in 10 games, tied for 34th in the league at the time. Since returning, he’s been slowly climbing the scoring list and now his 55 points to rank sixth in the NHL. McDavid also enters this game in a bit of a goals slump with just four since Dec. 1.

Head to head

The 14 previous head-to-head matchups have been heavily tilted in McDavid’s favour. The Oilers captain has three times as many goals and nearly four times as many points as his Penguins rival.

Crosby has been shut out in each of the last three meetings with the Oilers. McDavid also didn’t score in their last meeting in October, but in the game before that in March, he had the game-winning goal and three points in a 4-0 win.

While Crosby’s overall totals don’t come close to McDavid’s in this rivalry, he has produced some magic of his own. In their fifth-ever meeting back in 2018, both players had two points, but Crosby got the last laugh with a remarkable deke and goal in overtime.

Career numbers

Crosby is 10th all-time scoring and one more point will tie Joe Sakic for ninth in NHL history. After Sakic, next up is Crosby’s idol Mario Lemieux, who had 1,723 points in his career. Crosby signed a three-year extension with the Penguins this past summer, giving the 37-year-old a few more seasons to keep climbing the list.

Earlier this season, McDavid became the fourth-fastest player to score 1,000 points, doing it in just 659 games. At age 27, he was also the fourth-youngest to hit the milestone. Crosby was 29 and needed 757 games to reach 1,000 points when he did it in 2017, although concussions earlier in his career delayed that feat.

McDavid’s 1.52 points per game ranks him fourth all-time behind Hall-of-Famers Wayne Gretzky, Lemieux and Newsy Lalonde. Crosby is tied for 12th all-time at 1.25 points per game, but he is second among active players, slightly ahead of Nikita Kucherov, Kirill Kaprizov and Leon Draisaitl.