Not to apply pressure where pressure isn't due, but Sidney Crosby not only needs a goal today against the Ottawa Senators in Sweden, he needs a goal in a hurry.

Five minutes into the Penguins' season opener might be too late. He needs to one-time the first available puck of the new hockey season and pray he buries it.

The same applies to Evgeni Malkin.

Don't wait!

If I seem a little hysterical this morning, you have my perfunctory apology; it's just that while searching the Internet for any plausible reason why Beethoven would have fought so bitterly to keep his nephew Karl estranged from his mother, I've just stumbled over the third tiebreaker for the Art Ross Trophy.

Oh yeah, be careful with that mouse.

No Penguins fan needs be reminded of the significance of the Arty, the hardware that has been awarded annually since 1948 to the NHL's leading scorer. Penguins have won 12 of the past 21, a rather stunning accomplishment when you consider that that's more Arties than any of the original six 'ockey clubs, more Arties, in fact, than any 'ockey club ever to participate in the NH of L has even won.

Mario Lemieux took the thing six times, or once more than Jaromir Jagr, who with Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky (The Great One) dominated a 21-year era when the Art Ross Trophy was exclusively the property of that one tremendous offensive trinity.

Crosby won the Ross the year before last at age 19, meaning not only that he was the youngest player to do it, but also that he'd won it exactly one more time than anyone who ever wore a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater or a New York Rangers sweater.

Competition is fierce, naturally, with Washington's Alexander Ovechkin having earned it last year and all manner of physically gifted skaters angling to carve their names into its history alongside Crosby, Jagr, Lemieux, Lafleur, Esposito, Orr, Howe, etc. Frankly, it never occurred to me that when you're talking about the statistical accumulation of upward of 100 points through an endless winter that two players might finish the regular season with the identical amount, but it certainly occurred to someone, otherwise there wouldn't be a three-step tiebreaker in place for that exact scenario.

The first tiebreaker is goals. If Crosby winds up with 59 goals and 61 assists for 120 points and Ovechkin ends up with 60 goals and 60 assists for 120 points, for example, Ovechkin wins his second consecutive Art Ross Trophy.

The second is games played, the fewer the better. If Martin St. Louis gets 120 points in 78 games and it takes Malkin 79, St. Louis wins the Art Ross Trophy.

But the third tiebreaker is -- and yes I thought they were making it up -- the player who scores first.

That's what I mean by indicating it might already be too late when they drop the puck in Stockholm at 2:30 p.m. today. The New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning, the other teams starting the season in Europe today, are scheduled to skate at noon.

As for Ovechkin, his Capitals don't open until Friday night. He's probably screwed.

The tiebreaker system for the Art Ross is therefore plainly insufficient if not downright nonsensical. When you get right down to it, the league has no choice but to adopt the NFL tiebreaking system for any award for which it can be safely applied, although in the NHL's case, the number and diversity of the league's awards makes that something of a challenge.

We're talking about a league that annually awards the Art Ross Trophy, the President's Trophy, the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl, the Prince of Wales Trophy, the Hart Memorial Trophy, the James Norris Trophy, the Lady Byng Trophy, the Calder Memorial Award, the Conn Smythe Trophy, the Vezina Trophy, the William M. Jennings Trophy, the Bill Masterson Trophy, the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, the Jack Adams Award, the Frank J. Selke Trophy, the Lester B. Pearson Award, the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy, and the Kmart Employee of the Month.

So head-to-head doesn't always apply. But head-to-head would work in the case of the Arty. Taking our Crosby-Ovechkin example, the winner would be the player who scored the most points in Penguins-Capitals confrontations.

After that, it gets random, so I'd recommend the method Major League Baseball uses to determine such frivolous matters as the location of a one-game playoff that will decide the fate of two teams after 162 games could not. Coin flip.