Giguère, young stars lead red-hot Avalanche over Penguins

Jean-Sébastien Giguère stopped 34 shots to record a shutout against the Penguins on Monday.

Gene J. Puskar/AP

5. There is something in the water in Cole Harbour: Both Crosby and MacKinnon hail from the same town in Nova Scotia (pop. 25,000), three miles Southeast of Dartmouth, which is linked by the continent's oldest saltwater ferry boat to Halifax, which is Canada' No. 13 city. In other words, it isn't the size; it must be the water, especially since Cole Harbour is right at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. Crosby trained with MacKinnon periodically during the off-season, and both players acknowledge that they have formed a friendship away from the ice. Two days after the 2013 draft, they were running sand dunes in the Canadian Maritimes. "It's going to be cool," MacKinnon said before the game. "He's the best player in the world." It wasn't too long ago when Crosby was being compared to other great players in the game, but perhaps now that a new generation of stars is emulating him, The Kid may need a new moniker. "It means I'm getting old," Crosby says.