Crosby, Novak each scores twice, Penguins defeat Kings to end four-game skid

LOS ANGELES -- Sidney Crosby and Tommy Novak each scored twice, and the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Los Angeles Kings 5-2 at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday.

The victory ended a seven-game road losing streak for Pittsburgh, which was 0-6-1 away from home since a 7-0 victory against the Philadelphia Flyers in its season opener on Sept. 30.

“We’re obviously fighting for wins, and, you know, it’s good for us to get one here and hopefully keep it going on the road trip,” Novak said. “But, yeah, it’s obviously huge for us ‘cause we needed it badly.”

Egor Chinakhov scored, and Evgeni Malkin had three assists for the Penguins (6-9-2), who had lost four straight (0-3-1). Kris Letang had two assists, and Sergei Murashov made 26 saves for his first win of the season.

Crosby (1,773 points; 660 goals, 1,113 assists) passed Marcel Dionne (1,771 points; 731 goals, 1,040 assists) for sole possession of sixth place on the NHL’s all-time points list.

“Unbelievable,” Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse said of Crosby’s latest move up the record books. “Really happy for him, and, again, it seems like it’s every week, it’s a new one, so just incredible.”

Corey Perry and Alex Laferriere scored for the Kings (5-8-2), who are 2-2-0 in the first four games of a seven-game homestand. Darcy Kuemper made 14 saves.

“I mean, that’s any sport, turnovers are a big deal — football, basketball, baseball, hockey,” Los Angeles coach Peter Laviolette said. “You know, if you don’t execute with what you’re trying to do out there, it usually leads to opposition and possible runs coming back at you, possible goals coming back at you, points coming back at you. And so, there’s definitely things that we could have controlled better out there tonight with regard to that.”

Novak opened the scoring 1:52 into the first period. He was at the top of the crease to prevent Kuemper from cleanly catching Declan Carlile’s long shot from the blue line, and collected the rebound before beating Kuemper with a wrist shot from the edge of the left face-off circle.

Novak made it 2-0 at 5:10. He took the puck away from Kings defenseman Mikey Anderson in the defensive zone and started a rush the other way before pouncing on the rebound of Ben Kindel’s shot.

“Our first couple shifts, we had some good O-zone time,” Novak said. “I think Declan put a nice puck in there, and it bounced to me in a good spot and put it in. And then the second one was a nice play by ‘Kindy’ bringing it to the middle, and it just kind of laid there for me.”

Perry cut the deficit to 2-1 at 9:55 after Anderson’s wrist shot went wide left of the net and caromed off the glass into the blue paint, where Perry knocked it in out of midair.

Chinakhov put the Penguins back up 3-1 at 19:31 on a power play after a video review confirmed his wrist shot from above the left circle went into the top right corner and bounced off the back bar.

Laferriere got the Kings to within 3-2 with a power-play goal at 3:07 of the second period. His intended pass from the right circle deflected off the left skate of Pittsburgh defenseman Kaedan Korczak and went in through Murashov's pads.

Los Angeles forward Artemi Panarin appeared to tie the game 3-3 at 15:36, but the Penguins challenged the play for offside, and the call was overturned after a video review.

“This is on us tonight,” Laviolette said. “You know, it was pretty limited with what they generated, and we couldn’t generate. We had chances, we had looks, we had them called back, and there was an opportunity for us to take the game, and so it’s more on us and what we didn’t do.”

Crosby passed Dionne with his 1,772nd career point after Malkin's one-timer from the right circle caught a piece of him before going into the net off a setup from Erik Karlsson to make it 4-2 at 17:13.

“I mean, it was probably a little bit cooler because it was here,” Crosby said of passing Dionne, who played 12 seasons for the Kings.

Crosby was awarded a goal at 18:44 for the 5-2 final after he was impeded by Los Angeles defenseman Erik Gustafsson on a breakaway towards the empty net. It was Crosby’s second multigoal game of the season. He previously scored twice in a 5-3 loss at the Chicago Blackhawks on Oct. 13.

“Haven’t gone in easy, so yeah, just nice to get that one,” said Crosby, who had one goal in his previous seven games. “Nice to get a win and have a good feeling here going into tomorrow (at the Anaheim Ducks).” 

NOTES: Malkin (1,421 points; 539 goals, 882 assists) passed Adam Oates (1,420) for 20th on the NHL’s all-time scoring list. ... Novak (5:10) scored the fastest two goals by a player to begin a game this season. The last Penguins player to do so quicker was Anthony Mantha (2:42 on Jan. 22, 2026). ... Crosby, Malkin and Letang each recorded multiple points in the same game for the 37th time. Pittsburgh improved to 36-1-0 in those contests. ... Kings forward Alex Turcotte was minus-3 and had one shot on goal in 10:55 of ice time in his return to the lineup after missing 11 games because of an undisclosed injury.