Feels like every other game, someone is hitting a big milestone this season. Tonight's milestone: Sidney Crosby's three assists gave him 1,026 career assists, surpassing Gordie Howe's 1,023 with the Red Wings for the fifth-most with a single team in NHL history. Next up? Mario Lemieux, with 1,033. That one will obviously give Crosby the new franchise lead, too.

• Crosby is now within 100 points of the franchise lead in points. Lemieux leads with 1,723, and Crosby is now at 1,626.

• Bryan Rust recorded at least six shots in a game for the third time this season.

• Rust's hat trick was the sixth of his career, the most of any player since Rust came into the league in 2014-15. Rust surpassed Jake Guentzel's five career hat tricks in Pittsburgh and is now tied with Mike Bullard for the ninth-most hat tricks in franchise history. Next up: Rob Brown, with seven. Lemieux leads with 40, and Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are tied for second with 13 each.

• Crazy things happened when Erik Karlsson and Marcus Pettersson were on the ice together at five-on-five: The Penguins controlled 86.21% of shot attempts (25-4), 85% of unblocked attempts (17-3) and 88.89% of shots on goal (16-2). Three of the Penguins' nine goals came with the second defense pairing on the ice.

The 4 Nations Face-Off kicks off here at the Bell Centre in exactly two months ... and highlight-reel passes like this from Rickard Rakell apparently just aren't needed by Team Sweden:

"Sometimes it's just clicking," Rakell said of his line's game. "We talked about having a guy in the slot and just letting the first two guys go to work. We tried to not get them so tight on us down low, and that opened up some plays for us through the middle guy."

Rakell's own two-goal game brought him to 13 goals on the season, the third-most among all Swedish players. 

Marcus Pettersson told me after Rakell was snubbed from Sweden's roster that he thinks it will only fuel him -- "He doesn't let it get to him, but he still keeps that in the back of his mind and pushes forward. I think it can go both ways -- you don't want to just discard it, you want that kind of fire." Rakell has three goals and three assists in four games since rosters were announced on Dec. 4.

After a loss in Edmonton in its first appearance this season, Mike Sullivan's houndstooth Big Game Blazer bounced back and is now 5-1 over the last two seasons.

2023-24:
Nov. 19, 3-0 at home vs. Golden Knights
Dec. 13, 4-3 shootout win on road vs. Canadiens
Jan. 15, 3-0 win at home vs. Kraken
Feb. 27, 4-3 OT win on road vs. Canucks

2024-25
Oct. 25, 4-0 loss on road to Oilers
Dec. 12, 9-2 win on road vs. Canadiens

Almost time. Follow along live with me here tonight.

Here's Alex Letang, taking on equipment manager duties in addition to his role coaching the defense: