The Pittsburgh Penguins‘ star players are off to a hot and historic start to their 2024-25 NHL campaign.
On the same night team captain Sidney Crosby notched his 1,600th career point , teammate Evgeni Malkin tallied his 500th career goal.
The 38-year-old winger, drafted in 2004 by Pittsburgh, scored early in the third period to break a deadlock with the Buffalo Sabres and give his team a 4-3 lead.
Malkin is just the fourth active player to reach the 500-goal mark, behind Steven Stamkos (555 goals), Crosby (592) and Alexander Ovechkin (853). He’s now tied for 47th on the all-time leaderboard with Hall of Famer Lanny McDonald.
Malkin also became only the 20th player in league history to notch 500 goals with a single team, per Penguins PR.
He joins Crosby and Mario Lemieux as the only Pittsburgh players to reach the benchmark, making it only the second team all-time to have three 500-goal scorers (Montreal – Guy Lafleur, Jean Beliveau and Maurice “Rocket” Richard).
The big night completes a hat-trick of historic career milestones in just the past week for Malkin, who recorded his 800th assist on Oct. 10 and then also his 1,300th point just two days later — becoming just the third active player to do either.
The only other active player to notch as many points as Malkin and Crosby is Washington Capitals captain Ovechkin (1,553).
Tuesday night he became only the sixth player all-time to record at least 700 career goals and assists, another milestone in his chase to pass Wayne Gretzky for most goals all-time (894).
