Part one of this story can be found here. We take a look as some of Sidney Crosby’s line mates over the years with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Take a look at who we think are some of his better wingers.

Solid, but not Permanent

Patric Hornqvist

Hornqvist has been a constant force in the Penguins lineup and has now been here for five great years. However, just like Hagelin, Hornqvist has been moved up and down the lineup constantly to try and find a solid fit and develop chemistry. One of these solid fits was in 2016 where Hornqvist and Crosby won the Stanley Cup with the next player on our list as the left winger.

Connor Sheary

Many people look and Connor Sheary and say that he is only good because of Crosby. While some parts of that can be true, Sheary was a very skilled and talented player with the Penguins. However, he just lacked consistency. He was the original Jake Guentzel so to speak. However, his injuries, consistency and cap hit caused the Penguins to move on. The Penguins traded away Sheary to Buffalo in a cap dump trade with Matt Hunwick in June 2018.

Bill Guerin

How can a player who only spent two years on the team be ranked this high up? Well, because Guerin was Crosby’s right winger when they won the Stanley Cup in 2009. Guerin was exactly what the young Penguins needed as an established veteran who had won trophies in the past. He was put on a line with Crosby and Chris Kunitz for the playoffs and racked up 15 points in the postseason. Guerin eventually retired as a Penguin in 2010 and is now the Penguins assistant General Manager.

Pascal Dupuis

Duper was inches away from making it into the “perfect fit” category. However, he missed out because early in his time with the Penguins he was mainly a bottom six forward. After coming over in the Hossa trade, Dupuis started his career off as a depth player before Dan Bylsma found his potential as a winger for Crosby. Dupuis spent a lot of time on a line with Crosby and Kunitz and as a result he potted four 15+ goal season and 59 points in 2011-12. The two had great chemistry both off and on the ice and were great teammates together.

Bryan Rust

Rust has seen many brief spurts with Crosby and most of them have been fantastic. Much like Sheary, Rust lacked consistency throughout the regular season on the top line. However, in the playoffs is where Rust has come up clutch, scoring nine points in both Stanley Cup winning runs. He also had three-game winning goals in that two-year span. Still on the team, Rust will more than likely get another shot with Crosby this year again.

Max Talbot

Who else misses this man? Now officially retired from hockey, Max Talbot and Sidney Crosby had an interesting relationship. The two seemed to have a great relationship off the ice as friends. However, that didn’t necessarily mean on ice success. Talbot played all over the Penguins lineup in his six years and was spotted with Malkin and Jordan Staal mostly. He has much in common with Hornqvist and even Kunitz, as Talbot was barely drafted in the 8th round in 2002 which doesn’t even exist anymore. This makes him another one and a million hockey player that the Penguins took a chance on that ended up working.

Ryan Malone

One of the earliest line mates for Crosby in his coming of age was Ryan Malone. The hope was that Malone and Crosby would become a tandem that would be unstoppable as Malone was also young when him and Crosby were paired together. Malone would regularly put up around 20 goals and 40 points in his four years in Pittsburgh bouncing around the lineup. However, at the 2008 NHL Draft, the Penguins oddly traded Malone and Gary Roberts to the Tampa Bay Lightning for a third round pick who turned out to be Ben Hanowski. I guess it all worked out in the end though. The Penguins found themselves hoisting Stanley’s Cup not long after the trade.

Perfect Fits

Mark Recchi

One of Crosby’s most famous goals came in his rookie season where he dove for a puck and swatted it in. However, many people don’t know that the assist was from Mark Recchi. Hockey Hall of Famer Mark Recchi played seven non-sequential seasons for Pittsburgh and was only a teammate of Crosby for three years. Much like Mario Lemieux, Recchi acted as a mentor to the young Crosby in his first couple seasons. Crosby and Recchi went on to score a combined 159 points in the 2005-06 season. Crosby has been in the league for 13 seasons since then, and in that time he has seen the assister of his first ever NHL goal, become his assistant coach.

Colby Armstrong

Many people nowadays know him for the sports media work he does for the Penguins, but people tend to forget that Colby Armstrong was a skilled player. Another player that was brought up through the Penguins development program, Armstrong got to play with Crosby in all three of his years. Armstrong was able to score 40 points in 47 games during Crosby’s rookie season where Crosby had 102 points. Armstrong slots into this category because he followed the mentality of “get open and Crosby will get me the puck.” He was the perfect player for a young Crosby to work with. However, sadly, he had a short career after he was traded in the Hossa deal.

Jake Guentzel

Currently the second half of what is becoming one of the NHL’s best duos, Jake Guentzel just finished a 40-goal season. A third-round gem from 2013, Guentzel has played so well on any line that he is starting to avoid the “he is only good because of Crosby” comments. Arguably the best statistic out of all these players is the following: Jake Guentzel has scored 43 playoff points in 41 games. That included a 13-goal effort in 2017 where he found himself second in playoff goals by a rookie only one off from tying Dino Ciccarelli with 14. Crosby may have his name on the Conn Smythe for 2017, but Jake Guentzel was certainly deserving as well.

Chris Kunitz

Crosby’s best line mate ever is Chris Kunitz. He won a Stanley Cup in his first season with Crosby and he also won two more Stanley Cups in his last two seasons. Kunitz made Team Canada’s Olympic roster in 2014 so that he could play on a line with Crosby and they won gold. Kunitz assisted on Crosby’s 1,000th point, and Crosby assisted on Kunitz’s double overtime Game 7 goal. As an undrafted college player, Kunitz is a great story. These are the type of players the Penguins need to keep finding to win Stanley Cups.

Unlike the Oilers, we don’t have to panic as Crosby has had his fair share of great line mates in the past. Only time will tell if players such as Alex Galchenyuk, Dominik Simon, Jared McCann and Zach-Aston Reese can make this list. One thing is for sure though: Sidney Crosby makes the players around him better.

PHOTO: Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby, right, celebrates his second goal with teammate Patric Hornqvist, of Sweden, against the Calgary Flames in Calgary, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018. Photo courtesy of Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via Associated Press.

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