A look at scoreless Sidney Crosby, and other slow starters, including Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Anze Kopitar, Nikita Kucherov and more in Scott Cullen’s Statistically Speaking.

We’re not even a couple of weeks into the NHL season, so it’s very early to go passing judgment, but maybe not too soon to start wondering about slow starters, not least of all Sidney Crosby.

I projected Crosby to be the league’s leading scorer this season, because he has a superior track record.

Since being paired with Phil Kessel, Crosby appears to have focused his attention on setting up his new linemate rather than generating his own shots. Through five games, Crosby is averaging 1.6 shots on goal and 3.4 shot attempts per game.

Last season, when Crosby averaged a career-low 1.09 points per game, he generated 3.1 shots on goal and 4.9 shot attempts per game, so he’s way below that standard. In 2009-2010, he was averaging 3.7 shots on goal and 6.1 shot attempts. This is all despite starting a greater percentage of shifts in the offensive zone than ever before, so the opportunities should be there, but the results are not, yet.

This five-game scoreless drought for Crosby is noteworthy, because a player of his calibre doesn’t hit these dry spells often - this ties a career-worst - and there is fascination with how Crosby might be meshing with a new star winger, but the first and foremost point is that it’s early. There’s still a lot of time left for Crosby to gain ground in the scoring race.

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