Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are not supposed to be the sentimental ones in this story. They’re the guys who spent nearly two decades trying to ruin Alex Ovechkin’s night, and sometimes his week, and occasionally the entire mood of a Metropolitan Division winter. But here we are: the Penguins veterans talking about the Capitals captain like hockey historians with surprisingly soft hearts, admitting that the same monster who tormented them for years also helped define the league itself.

That’s the funniest part of Ovechkin’s legacy, if you can call greatness funny: the league’s most relentless goal hunter has now become the guy even his biggest enemies can’t help but applaud. Crosby called it a relief that Ovechkin can now “get that out there” and just enjoy hockey, while Malkin went full legend-mode, saying Ovechkin “did everything for a team, a league.” Coming from the two guys who spent the better part of a generation standing directly in the way of that team and that league’s main character, that’s basically the hockey version of your biggest blocker handing you the keys to the city.

And the context makes it richer. Crosby, Ovechkin and Malkin all entered the league in that same superstar storm, with one draft pick after another stacking up like fate had a grudge. They were young, they were overhyped, and then they were somehow underhyped, because Ovechkin turned the whole thing into a goal-scoring demolition derby and eventually rewrote the record book. Now the three of them are older, decorated and deep enough into their careers to sound less like rivals and more like three exhausted legends comparing notes after a very long shift. For Pittsburgh fans, the takeaway is simple: if Crosby and Malkin are applauding Ovechkin this loudly, the man didn’t just have a great career. He hit the league with enough force to make even the Penguins nod and admit it.

PITTSBURGH — In a thrilling tribute to the ancient art of arguing with geometry, Pitt escaped Blacksburg with a 35-33 win over Virginia Tech on Friday night after the Hokies’ last-second field goal somehow became the center of a full-blown college football philosophy seminar.

John Love lined up a 36-yard kick that looked, from at least one angle, like it had enough altitude to clear a small mountain range. From another angle, it looked like it drifted just inside the left upright. From the only angle that matters — the one with the official standing right under the goalpost like the final boss of the end zone — it was no good. And because college football has decided that kicks can apparently be too high to review, the Panthers walked away with the kind of win that makes one sideline cheer and the other one stare at the sky like it personally betrayed them. Pitt improved to 5-0, while Virginia Tech was left to process a loss that included four turnovers, a furious comeback, and the sort of ending that makes grown adults start measuring uprights with their eyes.

The rest of the game was plenty chaotic on its own. Pitt built a 35-24 lead, lost quarterback Mason Heintschel to what appeared to be a serious right knee injury, and still held on behind Holden Geriner and a defense that, at times, seemed to be surviving by pure spite. Virginia Tech outgained Pitt, moved the ball well, and still ended up with the sort of final scene that belongs in a math teacher’s nightmare. It was the perfect college football game: messy, dramatic, unfair, and somehow still legal. Pitt got the win, Virginia Tech got the heartbreak, and somewhere in the rule book, a tiny paragraph about upright height just became the most famous thing in the ACC.

Pitt’s first road trip of the season comes with the kind of extra seasoning college football loves to pretend it doesn’t care about: two unbeaten teams, an ACC race already starting to smell important, and James Franklin making his first trip to play Pitt as Virginia Tech’s head coach. That alone would be enough to make this one spicy. But add the old bad blood between Franklin and Pat Narduzzi — the whole "running up the score" era of eye-rolls, clipped remarks and general football pettiness — and suddenly this isn’t just another Friday-night conference game. It’s a home-and-home with receipts.

On paper, the football is serious. Pitt is 4-0 and has absolutely flattened people, outscoring opponents 157-34 and coming off a 59-0 demolition of Bucknell. Virginia Tech is also 4-0, just survived a scare at Boston College, and will try to lean on a rushing attack that has been pretty solid against a Pitt defense that has been downright nasty against the run. That’s the actual chessboard here: Pitt’s defense trying to choke off the Hokies’ ground game, Virginia Tech trying to keep the game from turning into a Mason Heintschel showcase, and both sidelines acting like they’re above the drama while everybody in the building knows better. If Pitt has any pride — and let’s not be rude, of course it does — it should keep its foot on the gas, because Franklin’s return to the pit is the kind of matchup where the scoreboard tends to get loud and the feelings get even louder. Sarcastic? Sure. But also extremely football.