NEW YORK — Kris Letang and Phil Kessel each had a goal and an assist Wednesday as the Pittsburgh Penguins downed the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2. Riley Sheahan and Sidney Crosby also scored, and Evgeni Malkin added two assists for Pittsburgh.

Goaltender Matt Murray made 33 saves for the Penguins. He is 11-2 in 13 starts since he returned from a lower-body injury.

The Penguins had lost two in a row and four of five, and were critical of their recent play after a loss to New Jersey on Monday. With the win, they knocked off the top team in the NHL.

J.T. Miller and Steven Stamkos scored for the Lightning after the team trailed 4-0. Tampa Bay has lost three of its past five games. Andrei Vasilevskiy gave up four goals on 22 shots.

Tampa Bay had been off since Jan. 19, before a bye week, the All-Star break and a couple extra days with no games scheduled. Pittsburgh took a 3-0 lead in the first period.

Sheahan gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead at 3:25 when he scored on a rebound of Garrett Wilson's wraparound attempt.

Off a give-and-go with Bryan Rust, Kessel scored from nearly beyond the right post as he drove by the net to make it 2-0 at 8:05 of the first. Malkin picked up the secondary assist, the 600th of his career.

Crosby scored to make it 3-0 16 seconds after Kessel's goal. Tampa Bay's Brayden Point turned the puck over behind his net, and Dominik Simon set up Crosby near the left post.

During four-on-four play, Letang took a light-touch feed from Kessel. His shot from the right circle beat Vasilevskiy to the far side. It was Letang's 108th career goal, tying him with Paul Coffey for the Pittsburgh record for goals by a defenseman.

In a rarity among elite players, Malkin and Stamkos had a short fight at 1:40 of the third period. Miller broke up Murray's shutout bid at 15:50 of the third, and Stamkos made it 4-2 with 2:04 left.

In the other match of the night, Jamie Benn scored the game's only goal midway through the first period, and Ben Bishop stopped 30 shots to earn his third shutout of the season as the Dallas Stars returned from the All-Star break with a gutsy 1-0 victory over the visiting Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday.

Bishop recorded the 27th clean sheet of his 10-season NHL career and improved his career record against the Sabres to 11-0-1 with a 1.42 goals-against average and a .947 save percentage in 12 games. It was his first time facing Buffalo as a member of the Stars.

Fourteen of Bishop's saves came in the third period, with nine of those over the final four minutes as Buffalo pressed for the equalizer.

Bishop's effort down the stretch was helped by a nearly two-minute stretch in which Dallas kept the puck in the Sabres' offensive zone in search of an insurance goal — and the fact that Buffalo goaltender Linus Ullmark could not leave the ice for an extra attacker until one minute was left in the game.

Benn put the Stars in front at the 8:39 mark of the opening period when he took a pass from Taylor Fedun after a turnover in the Sabres' zone and slipped the puck under the pads of Ullmark. That, thanks to Bishop, was all Dallas needed.

Ullmark was also solid between the pipes, turning away 26 of the 27 shots he faced. Buffalo remained stuck on 25 wins for the year, a total that already equals its number of victories from the entire 82-game 2017-18 season. The Sabres, who beat Columbus on the road on Tuesday, are now 5-3-2 in the second game of back-to-backs this season.

Newly acquired defenseman Jamie Oleksiak played his first game for the Stars on Wednesday since Dec. 9, 2017. Oleksiak, who was a first-round draft pick of Dallas in 2011, returned to the team in a trade with Pittsburgh on Monday.

The Stars head back to the ice Friday when they host Minnesota in the final game of a six-game homestand. Buffalo returns home to host Chicago, also on Friday.

Meanwhile, the New Jersey Devils acquired defenseman Ryan Murphy from the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday in exchange for defenseman Michael Kapla.

Murphy, 25, has tallied 42 points in 174 career NHL games but appeared in only two contests this season with Minnesota. He spent parts of five seasons with the Carolina Hurricanes before joining the Wild last season.

Kapla, 24, appeared in five games with the Devils during the 2016-17 campaign but did not register a point. He had 16 points (one goal, 15 assists) in 45 games this season with the AHL's Binghamton Devils. — Reuters