Crosby First Teenager To Capture Scoring Title In Major Pro Sports

 

NHL PR

 

Four months before his 20th birthday, Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby finished the 2006-07 regular season with an NHL-best 120 points and captured the 2006-07 Art Ross Trophy as League scoring champion. Crosby becomes the first teenager in major pro team sports history to win a scoring title.

Crosby will receive the trophy at a media luncheon in conjunction with Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final, date and site to be determined. He will be joined by Vincent Lecavalier of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who captured the Maurice Richard Trophy as the League's leading goal-scorer with a career-high 52, and Minnesota Wild goaltenders Niklas Backstrom and Manny Fernandez, who shared the William Jennings Trophy as goaltenders on the club allowing the fewest regular-season goals (191).

Crosby, 19 years, eight months old, finished the regular season with 36 goals and 84 assists for 120 points -- six ahead of San Jose Sharks center Joe Thornton, the 2005-06 Art Ross Trophy winner. NHL immortal Wayne Gretzky captured his first points title in 1980-81 at 20 years, three months.
Crosby took the lead in the League scoring race with a career-high six-point night Dec. 13 against Philadelphia and stayed on top thereafter, never going more than three consecutive games without a point. The Penguins were 41-10-9 in games when he recorded a point, 6-13-0 when he did not and 0-1-2 when he was out of the lineup.

Sparked by Crosby and a supporting cast that included standout rookies Evgeni Malkin, 20, and Jordan Staal, 18, the Penguins finished the season with a 47-24-11 record for 105 points, qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2001 and recording a 47-point improvement over 2005-06. Only three clubs in NHL history have posted a bigger gain, most recently the Winnipeg Jets' 48-point surge from 1980-81 to 1981-82.

The youngest player to win the NBA scoring title was the Chicago Stags' Max Zaslofsky, who recorded a league-leading 1,007 points in 48 games as a 22-year-old in 1947-48. Michael Jordan won his first scoring title at 24 in 1986-87 (37.1 points per game), Kobe Bryant at 27 in 2005-06 (35.4 ppg). The youngest hitter in Major League Baseball to win a batting title was the Detroit Tigers' Al Kaline, 20, whose .340 average topped the American League in 1955. Indianapolis Colts rookie Edgerrin James, 21, led the NFL in rushing in 1999 with 1,553 yards.

Photo: Sidney Crosby © Chris Fuller (HV)