in his career. He was also elected team-MVP. Crosby was selected to the NHL All-Decade First Team in January 2020. The Penguins finished fifth in the Eastern Conference in the COVID-19-shortened 2019–20 season, facing the 12th-seeded Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference qualifying round. The Canadiens upset the Penguins in four games, eliminating Pittsburgh on August 7, 2020, Crosby's 33rd birthday. In the shortened 2020–21 season, Crosby led the team in scoring with 62 points (24 goals and 38 assists), and was the recipient of the team's MVP Award and the Players' Player Award. He was also a finalist for the Ted Lindsay Award. On February 21, 2021, Crosby became the first player in Penguins history to play 1,000 games with the franchise. The team clinched a playoff berth for the 15th consecutive season under Crosby's captaincy, the longest active postseason streak among all teams in the North American professional sports leagues. However, the Penguins were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the New York Islanders for the second time in three seasons. On February 15, 2022, Crosby scored his 500th career goal on a power play against the Philadelphia Flyers, becoming the 46th player to score that many goals in NHL history and the 18th to have scored them all for a single team. He was the second Penguin to score 500 goals, after Lemieux. Continuing to hit new milestones, in an April 10 game against the Nashville Predators he recorded a goal and an assist in regulation time, before scoring the overtime-winning goal, his 1400th point in the NHL. Crosby finished the season with 31 goals and 53 assists in 69 games played, while the Penguins were third in the Metropolitan Division. They advanced into the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs to meet the New York Rangers. With both Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang's contracts up in the summer, there was some question as to whether this would be the final outing for the core of the Penguins franchise in Crosby's era. In Game 3 of the series against the Rangers, Crosby recorded his 197th career playoff point, passing Paul Coffey for sixth place in all-time playoff point standings. Two days later, he managed a goal and two assists in the Penguins' 7–2 victory in Game 4, becoming the sixth player to record 200 career points in the playoffs. Midway through the second period of Game