Sidney Crosby's MVP Season Should Get Him An Award This Year — But It's Not the Hart Trophy

You have to do some mental gymnastics — and take a literal definition of the wording of the award — in an attempt to convince anyone that Sidney Crosby should be in the same conversation as Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid for the Hart Trophy.

I get it. I do.

Crosby is 36 years old. At an age where he showed be slowing down, he's instead risen up and taken the Pittsburgh Penguins, a team that a month ago had the fourth-worst record at the trade deadline, to within a point of a playoff spot. With 85 points in 77 games, he's now recorded an NHL record 18 straight seasons of finishing with a point per game.

That's MVP-worthy — especially in a year where Crosby has scored 15 more goals and 23 points than Pittsburgh's next-highest scorer. After all, the Hart is supposed to go to the player "to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team."

But enough already.

What Crosby has done this year is impressive. But is it as impressive as

Kucherov having scored 136 points? Or MacKinnon having scored  133 points? McDavid is one pass away from becoming only the fourth player ever to record 100 assists. Surely, that's even more impressive. How about Auston Matthews' pursuit of 70 goals? Or what David Pastrnak or Artemi Panarin has accomplished?

Hart Trophy? If this was anyone but Crosby, who's 51 points back of Kucherov for the scoring lead, he wouldn't even be in the conversation.But for those wanting Crosby to win something — anything — for what he's done with so little this year, there is another award he could get. It's not the Selke Trophy, which will probably go to Aleksander Barkov. And it's not the Lady Byng, which Matthews might win.Rather, it's the Mark Messier NHL Leadership Award. 

The award is not something that all hockey fans might be aware of. But because it recognizes "the player who exemplifies great leadership qualities to his team, on and off the ice, during the regular season and who plays a leading role in his community growing the game of hockey,” it’s one that Crosby deserves to win.

Heck, he's already won it before when he finished first with 51 goals  in 2009-10. It was Crosby's first time hitting the 50-goal mark. And it came in a season when his teammate, Evgeni Malkin, missed 15 games.

Last year, the Mark Messier NHL Leadership Award went to Steven Stamkos, which was more of a career achievement than anything. Stamkos wasn't a top scorer in the league. In fact, he finished third on his team with 84 points in 81 games. But in a year when he picked up a trio of milestones — picking up his 500th assist, 500th goal and 1,000th point, while also appearing in his 1,000th game — it was fitting to reward him with something.

This year, Crosby is in a similar position. 

“You look at where we were two weeks ago, we probably didn’t think we’d be in this position to be playing meaningful games,” Crosby told reporters on Monday. “To be in meaningful games is big. It’s fun.”

In other words, he deserves something for all that he's done. It's just not the Hart.