So, Sidney Crosby assisted on a Chris Kunitz goal on Tuesday night to become the first player in the NHL to reach 100 points during the 2013-14 season.

That’s great news for a guy who’s carving out one heck of a legacy, especially if you correct for the offense-in-quicksand-effect his era has on his numbers (much like, say, Jaromir Jagr in his prime). The bad news is that it appears that no one else will even come particularly close to hitting the century mark this season, barring a truly incredible final few games.

(Ryan Getzlaf is the only player who has more than 80 points right now, as he has 83 points in 71 games played. Unfortunately for his milestone purposes, he missed four games and his Anaheim Ducks only have seven games left … so I’m going out on a limb by saying that he might not even hit 90 points, especially if they decide to rest him.)

In a vacuum, it’s easy to be thrilled that Crosby reached that plateau for the fifth time in his career. That number would be much higher if he wasn’t limited to 53 games or less in four seasons, although last year doesn’t count … even if he suffered a significant injury then, too. Hopefully most of us have taken the last few years to grow up a bit and agree that Crosby’s blistering on-ice IQ, continually improving game and feisty competitiveness easily makes up for the occasional irritating personality trait.*

(Hopefully.)

THE CONS

Interestingly, Crosby’s approximate 1.32 points-per-game - 100 in 76, to be more specific - is the second-worst mark of his distinguished career, only topping his 1.26 average from his 102-point rookie season.

And that’s where the bad part comes in: it shouldn’t take the best player since [fill in the blank with Jagr, Peter Forsberg/Joe Sakic, Mario Lemieux or Wayne Gretzky depending upon your opinion of where Crosby weighs in] to hit a milestone that should be reasonably attainable for at least a handful of elite NHL scorers.

On the bright side, I think this otherwise-disturbing trend could be good news for Daily Dose readers. I’ll explain why soon enough, but let’s provide some worrisome context first.

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Throwing out the lockout-shortened season for obvious reasons, the NHL has only had one 100-plus-point scorer for three straight seasons (2010-11, 2011-12 and 2013-14). If you count the lockout-abbreviated year, it’s four. This might lead some to say “What’s the big deal if it’s happened in previous years?”

Well, I actually find it more disturbing that the NHL might not even have another 90-point scorer. In 2011-12, Evgeni Malkin towered over all with 109 points (remarkably, in 75 games), yet Steve Stamkos (97 points) and Claude Giroux (93 points) at least flirted with a hundy. In 2010-11, Daniel Sedin didn't really dwarf the pack that badly with 104 points, as he was followed by Martin St. Louis (99), Corey Perry (98), his hermano Henrik Sedin (94) and Stamkos (91).

I think that discussing 100-point scorers is a simpler way to express the scoring shortage - I get that decimal points make peoples’ brains bleed/think back to horrible classroom experiences - but if you’re the type to yell “Well, that’s just the elite players” while fried food spews out of your mouth,** the scoring average numbers argue that the NHL is either a) basically right back in the Dead Puck Era or b) close enough that someone, somewhere should probably be worried.

IGNORING THE RED FLAG

Sadly, the NHL’s priorities seem to revolve around tiny changes instead of big ones.

From an executive standpoint, I get it, at least as much as I can stomach such thought processes. The league thinks that a broken system that barely distinguishes a regulation/overtime win from a shootout win (tiebreakers!) helps foster parity, which spreads the wealth. I’d argue that 1) the salary cap breeds parity in itself, as you can see in every sport except maybe the NBA that has a salary cap and 2) that mediocre teams would do better at the box office if they were mediocre and exciting instead of mediocre and boring. Still, that’s just not how these people think, as we’ve clearly seen from their unchanging actions except when the survival of the sport was literally on the line.

Story continues