"Sidney Crosby has earned his reputation, and a pretty nice living, largely on the strength of his talents as a set-up man.

Sure, he has scored more goals than most, but in general, he's more likely to pass a puck than to shoot it, if the circumstances permit.

So when he wound up from inside the right circle during a third-period power play at Mellon Arena last night, a lot of people probably assumed that he was bluffing, that he was fully intent on getting the puck to a teammate.

Those people turned out to be correct, because Crosby threw a pass to Bill Guerin, who beat Colorado goalie Peter Budaj from along the goal line to the left of the net for what became the winner in the Penguins' 4-1 victory.

But it turned out that they were wrong, too, because Crosby really did consider throwing the puck on goal before opting to slide it to Guerin.

"I was thinking, 'Shot,' " Crosby said. "I still had my head up [and] I saw Billy kind of getting himself in a position off to the side."

Whether Crosby convinced the crowd he was going to shoot didn't matter, because he certainly seem to get Budaj to believe he would.

Crosby's fake froze him, and that prevented Budaj from getting into position to stop Guerin's shot after the pass went to him.

"If he'd telegraphed the pass, [Budaj] is going to read it," Guerin said. "Sid sold the pass pretty good."

Crosby, who pushed his goals total to 19, has been doing a lot of things pretty well lately.

Last night, he scored two goals and set up another, giving him 11 points in the past three games."