Penguins' Sidney Crosby voted most complete player by peers - ESPN

Sidney Crosby remains the NHL's most complete player, according to his peers.

The annual NHLPA players poll was released on Tuesday, with 663 members chiming in on 12 hockey-related questions. It's the 10th edition of the player poll.

Crosby, the 37-year-old Pittsburgh Penguins star, was named the NHL's most complete player for the sixth straight season. But there's a challenger to his throne: Crosby earned 33.81% of the votes with Florida Panthers star Aleksander Barkov (30.95%) right behind him. Year over year, Barkov cut Crosby's lead for the award from 140 votes to just 18 votes.

Crosby was also named the NHL's smartest player (27.02%) over Tampa Bay Lightning star Nikita Kucherov (24.71%), as well as the player his peers would most rely on to win a faceoff (20.39%) overtaking Nashville Predators center Ryan O'Reilly (9.95%), who won the category last season. Kucherov was named the NHL's best playmaker (48.25%).

Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid was also a multiple category winner, taking best overall forward in a romp (73.89%) over Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche (9.62%); and best overall skater (66.41%) over Cale Makar of the Avalanche (11.41%), who was named the NHL's best overall defenseman (71.78%) by a wide margin over Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks (7.44%).

The vote for best goaltender offered the poll's most surprising result. Connor Hellebuyck for the Winnipeg Jets, who is expected to win his second straight Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender, placed third in the vote (15.57%) behind Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy (31.13%) and Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers (23.58%).

In other superlatives, Boston Bruins forward David Pastrnak and Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston