Canadian Olympic gold medalist Sidney Crosby of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia recorded his 15th career National Hockey League hat trick on Friday. Crosby scored thrice as the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-2 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
Crosby scored his first goal of the game with 29 seconds left in the first period to tie the game at two goals apiece. He scored from Bryan Rust and Jake Guentzel. Then after a second period without any goals in the game, Crosby scored at 13:32 on the power play from Rust and Evgeni Malkin to put the Penguins up 4-2. Crosby then notched an empty net goal with 1:58 left from Mike Matheson of Pointe-Claire, Quebec and Brian Dumoulin.
Matheson meanwhile scored the game-winning goal at 5:35 of the third period from Danton Heinen of Langley, British Columbia and Dumoulin. Crosby also had an assist as he helped set up Dumoulin to score the opening goal of the game at the 32 second mark of the first period. Crosby won a gold medal for Canada at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi.
Crosby now has 10 goals and 21 assists for 31 points in 28 games this season. He is a +12 with 10 penalty minutes, nine power-play points, two-game winning goals, 79 shots on goal, 268 faceoff wins, 12 blocked shots, 15 hits, eight takeaways, and 26 giveaways.
