LOS ANGELES — On a night when the Kings honored first responders in a moving ceremony before the game, the brave men and women on hand hardly needed to spring into action as the Pittsburgh Penguins extinguished what little fire the hosts showed, 5-1, on Monday at Crypto.com Arena, snapping the Kings’ nine-game home win streak.
Kevin Hayes, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Cody Glass and Anthony Beauvillier scored a goal apiece for Pittsburgh. Beauvillier, Crosby and Hayes each added an assist. Alex Nedeljkovic turned away 25 shots.
Adrian Kempe scored the Kings’ lone goal, with a two-man advantage. David Rittich had 27 saves in their first home loss since a 1-0 defeat to Buffalo on Nov. 20.
The Kings – playing their first home game since the devastating wildfires in the region – headed into the dressing room after 20 minutes down by two goals scored four minutes apart, at the 10:09 and 14:09 marks, and they never got any nearer to the visitors.
Pittsburgh opened the scoring with a power-play marker on which two of the Kings’ penalty-kill specialists were shown up by Hayes. He eased past Trevor Lewis and down the wall, skating to the net front, where his stop-and-go move shook Joel Edmundson before he scored in tight off Edmundson’s stick.
Crosby put the Penguins up by a pair with his dextrous deflection of Matt Grzelcyk’s point shot, bouncing the puck off the ice and by Rittich.
A defensive breakdown was the common thread between the first and third Pittsburgh goals, with the third coming at even strength, 8:26 into the second period. A near giveaway by Kris Letang drew all five Kings into the right circle. Three passes later, Malkin was sweeping the puck past Rittich to make it 3-0.
The Kings earned their first power play of the contest at 14:32, their second 53 seconds later and, 33 seconds after that they produced their first goal of the game. The five-on-three situation enabled them to set up Kempe for a one-timer from the right circle that dented the post, and then a second that tickled the twine for his team-leading 23rd goal of 2024-25.
They would give that tally back less than three minutes later. Mikey Anderson’s neutral-zone giveaway led to a tempered, three-on-three counterattack. Glass slipped between both Anderson and Vladislav Gavrikov, who had an uncharacteristically shaky night as a pairing, to redirect Hayes’ pass and regain a three-goal lead.
With 13:03 to play in the match, Beauvillier padded the Pens’ lead, depositing the change knocked loose by Letang’s shot off a pass from below the goal line by Crosby, cementing the 5-1 final.
More to come on this story.