Sidney Crosby pays Justin Danforth the ultimate compliment.

Every player that makes it to the National Hockey League has had to work hard to get to where they are, but for some the road to the NHL is a little easier than others. For some the road to the NHL is a very long and very arduous process, and one very recent example of one such journey has been that of forward Justin Danforth.

Danforth was never really on the radar of NHL teams as a young hockey player and instead bounced around a few teams in the American Hockey League, playing in very few games for those organizations. A lack of success in North America would lead Danforth to Europe where he would spend two seasons before eventually playing a season in the Kontinental Hockey League for Podolsk Vityaz.

Now, just one season later, Danforth has appeared in the first 36 games of his NHL career at 29 years of age and is turning some heads with his play for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Danforth has 9 goals and 2 assists for a total of 11 points over those 36 games this season, but recently he received an incredible compliment from one of the very best players in the sport.

Recently the native of Oshawa, Ontario and his Blue Jackets faced off against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and it was following that game that Penguins captain Sidney Crosby was curious about Danforth. Crosby reportedly inquired about the first year NHL forward in a conversation that Blue Jackets associate head coach Pascal Vincent recounted as follows:

'That Danforth guy, who is he?' asked Crosby as per NHL.com.

"He said, 'He's a young guy, Danforth?' I said, 'He's not so young, but he's a good player for us. He's on the puck, he works hard, he can shoot the puck.' He said, 'Yeah, I was looking at him, and he's hard to play against.' To me, it tells you everything about Danforth."

That's high praise for a largely unheralded player prior to this season, and perhaps it is a sign that Danforth can expect to be back in the NHL next season.