When Sidney Crosby set up Jake Guentzel for a third-period goal Saturday night, it answered a lot of questions.
Where would the Pittsburgh Penguins finish in the Metropolitan Division standings? Third place after a 4-3 overtime loss to the New York Rangers.
Who would their first-round playoff opponent be? The second-place New York Islanders.
How many points would Crosby finish the season with? One-hundred, reaching that milestone for the sixth time in his career and first time since 2013-14.
How many goals would Guentzel finish with? Forty, making him the 20th player in franchise history to reach that total.
One big question, though, remained: Who gets the puck?
Short of a King Solomon-style slicing of the puck into two equal pieces, both Crosby and Guentzel had strong claims to add the memento to their personal memorabilia collections.
Sidney Crosby recorded his 100th point and Jake Guentzel scored his 40th goal on the same play tonight. Who should keep the puck?
— Jonathan Bombulie (@BombulieTrib) April 7, 2019
Guentzel’s best argument might be that Crosby has plenty of milestone pucks already in his collection.
Crosby’s best case might be that 100 is a rounder number than 40, and that the only reason Guentzel doesn’t have as many commemorative pucks in his possession is that he has only played in the league for two full seasons.
Guentzel was diplomatic about the matter after the game.
“I don’t know,” Guentzel said. “That’s what we were talking about. It’s going to be weird. We’ll see what happens. It’s pretty cool to be playing alongside a guy that gets 100 points.”
Crosby was polite as well, but he left no doubt about his intentions.
“We’ll have to figure that one out,” Crosby said. “That’s going to be a good one. Have to try to negotiate something with him. He’ll get 50 at some point, so maybe I’ll just hold onto that one.”
