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PITTSBURGH -- Since stumbling to start this lengthy road trip, the Los Angeles Kings have rebounded with consecutive victories, including a win against one of the NHLs hottest teams.Tyler Toffoli scored a minute into overtime, helping the Kings end the Pittsburgh Penguins seven-game winning streak with a 1-0 victory Friday night.Los Angeles is in the midst of a nine-game, 18-day trip that started with a loss Tuesday at Buffalo and ends in two weeks at Edmonton. This game followed a 4-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night.Its great to get two big wins in tough buildings on back-to-back nights, Kings goaltender Peter Budaj said. Were going to rest and get ready because this road trip keeps continuing. We have to be sharp because were going to play in some tough buildings.The Kings have won four straight against the Penguins and three of four overall. Toffoli got his eighth goal, and Budaj stopped 39 shots for his third shutout of the season.Toffoli scored on a 3-on-1, taking a pass from defenseman Alec Martinez before skating to the top of the crease and lifting a wrist shot that beat Penguins goaltender Matt Murray to the glove side. Seconds earlier, Penguins forward Phil Kessel missed the net and his stick broke on an attempted shot off the rush, creating the 3-on-1 that led to the winner.I think we got a fortunate bounce with Kessel breaking his stick, Toffoli said. You need some luck on your side and we got that.Murray made his fifth straight start and had 27 saves for the Penguins. Pittsburgh previously won nine of 11 and six straight at home.Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby ended his season-high -- and NHL-best -- nine-game point streak. Crosby leads the league with 21 goals but failed to score in consecutive games for the first time this season. He has points in 20 of 25 games this year.The Penguins sit atop the Metropolitan Division with 44 points and are tied with Chicago for the NHL lead. Pittsburgh scored at least four goals in each of the previous seven games, but the Kings were able to shut down the second-highest scoring team in the league.They did a good job of packing it in and kept us to the outside for the most part, but we played really well, Murray said. It was just one of those nights.Los Angeles has six wins in 15 road games this season, compared to 10 wins in 15 home games. The Kings allowed six goals on the first game of the trip, but they have shut it down since, giving up one goal in back-to-back victories.After our game in Buffalo, we really wanted to tighten it up, Toffoli said. Tonight was an example of that and we got the win.Pittsburgh had a 30-15 advantage in shots heading into the third but couldnt get on the board. The Kings outshot Pittsburgh in the third and had the periods only power play, but still the game went scoreless to OT. It was the fourth time in the last five meetings the teams needed overtime against one another.The Penguins played without top defenseman Kris Letang, who is out a couple weeks with a lower-body injury. The Penguins were down to four defensemen at one point in Fridays game after losing Trevor Daley late in the second period and Brian Dumoulin early in the third. Dumoulin returned, but Daley did not.Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said Daley is being evaluated for an upper-body injury.Letang, who had seven assists in his last seven games, was injured in Pittsburghs win against Boston on Wednesday. The Penguins had been 4-1 in five games without Letang this season and 2-8-1 in 11 games missed last season.Pittsburgh recalled Derrick Pouliot from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to take Letangs spot in the lineup. Pouliot previously played in one game against San Jose earlier this season.Game notes Kings general manager Dean Lombardi said Wednesday that goaltender Jonathan Quick will be out until around mid-February with a groin injury that has sidelined him since October. ... Pittsburgh scratched F Eric Fehr and D Steve Oleksy, while Los Angeles sat F Devin Setoguchi, F Andy Andreoff and D Kevin Gravel. ... Pittsburgh recognized former goaltender Jeff Zatkoff, now on Los Angeles, with a video tribute.UP NEXTKings: Continue their road trip at Boston on Sunday.Penguins: Visit Toronto on Saturday night. DeMarcus Ware Cowboys Jersey . - Blake Griffin had 30 points and 12 rebounds, J. Jason Witten Jersey . Schenn scored the game-winning goal and added two assists to lead the Philadelphia Flyers to a 4-1 win over the Calgary Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Tuesday. https://www.cowboyssportsgoods.com/Womens-Demarcus-Ware-Inverted-Jersey/ . U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield in Manhattan agreed that lawyers on both sides could make their formal requests by Nov. 8. A hearing is scheduled for a day earlier. Jordan Siev, a lawyer for Rodriguez, wrote in a joint letter to the judge from lawyers on both sides that MLB lawyers planned to ask that the lawsuit be dismissed. Ezekiel Elliott Cowboys Jersey . -- Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Alrdridge were again the go-to duo for the Trail Blazers against the Kings. Demarcus Lawrence Cowboys Jersey . Defencemen Drew Doughty, Shea Weber and forward Ryan Getzlaf also scored for the Canadians, who started their gold-medal defence 2-0. Goalie Roberto Luongo, getting the call in place of Game 1 starter Carey Price, was solid when needed in making 23 saves for the shutout. INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Its right there, in bold type, on the College Football Playoff website.Every Game Counts. Well, and sorry if this seems a little weird, truth is that maybe not quite every game. Maybe the game that does not count is a conference championship game, like Saturday nights Big Ten matchup of Penn State and Wisconsin, and try to explain that one.Because, in the very next paragraph, the playoff websites criteria go on to proclaim, The selection committee ranks the teams based on conference championships won . . .In other words, a conference championship is the key factor.Except when it isnt.Critics used to mock the people who run the college football bowl games because they paraded around looking like peacocks in all those brightly colored blazers with their oversize logos, spending fall weekends wining and dining athletic directors.Well, those guys look like Einstein compared to the clowns now in charge of the college playoff.They played the Big Ten championship game Saturday night at the dome in Indianapolis, and as game time approached, tickets could be had for less than $10, which should give you some idea of what the public thought of it.And about a dozen hours after the end of the game, Ohio State, which failed even to qualify for the conference title game, is expected to be chosen one of the four teams for the college playoff.The Big Ten champion will finish the season with a high place in the national rankings and a boost in its recruiting. It just will not be given a chance to play for the national championship, not be allowed a Cinderella champion like Texas Western in 1966 or a Villanova in 1985 in the NCAA basketball tournament.The consolation prize will be a trip to the Rose Bowl.Thats not bad.And, an argument can be made that Ohio State was the best team in the Big Ten this year, anyway, and maybe it was, although it lost to Penn State and beat Michigan only because of a few dunderhead plays by the Wolverines in critical spots. But the point is the Buckeyes did not even win their conference championship and they are going to get a chance to play for the national championship and the team(s) that finished ahead of them in the conference are not.You have to wonder what the geniuses who dreamed up the college playoff were thinking when, by design, they guaranteed a degree of controversy by setting up a four-team playoff among five power conferences. In other words, you know you are starting out by leaving out one of the conference champions. Period.Its a small step from there to leaving out another.The playoff, of course, was supposedly designed to eliminate the controversy that occurred in the past when the national champion was decided by a vote instead of, oh, say, an actual game. Which is how an undefeated Nebraska was selected over an undefeated Penn State in 1994 or several years when two groups of voters seleected different teams as national champions, giving a little for everybody.ddddddddddddA word, supposedly, appears in the previous paragraph because it would never pass a lie detector test. Lets face it, the playoff was set up to give a small group power and a bigger group money, because nothing much happens in college sports that does not really involve power and money.The five major conferences brought six bowls into their playoff orbit and only under pressure allowed one of the dozen spots to go to a school not a member of their cartel. But they certainly did not want one of the outliers getting super rich on the playoff, which is why they limited the playoff field to four teams and put the rest into a so-called Group of 6 bowl lineup which they controlled -- and, of course, sold for a huge sum to television.One interesting sidelight is that the people who run this sham championship arrangement, try as they might, could not fool everybody. Youd think, ordinarily, the championship game of the richest conference would be a huge magnet for fans, but since the fans realized it had so little to do with the national championship they smelled it for what it is.On Stubhub earlier in the week, there were more than 15,000 tickets available for the Penn State-Wisconsin matchup. As late as Saturday morning, more than 5,000 were still available, with sideline seats going for as little as, get this, $9.71.You can be sure that would not have been the case were the winner assured of going on to play for a bigger prize, but as it was, even Penn State and Wisconsin fans kept their wallets in their pockets because, since the meaning of the game was diminished, theyd prefer to save for, say, a trip to Pasadena instead of Indianapolis.Going into the game, the coaches, of course, tried to downplay the bigger picture by simply talking about the import of a conference championship -- huge, said Penn States James Franklin -- and deferring any questions about the playoff possibilities.But it didnt take a deep reading of Franklins comments to know how he felt.You could make a really good argument that the Big Ten, specifically the Big Ten East, may be the best conference in all of college football right now, Franklin said.He is probably right. The Big Ten is probably the best conference in college football right now, just a couple years after people were writing obituaries about the leagues weakness. Its just not a good enough conference, apparently, to allow its champion to play for the national title.--Ira Miller is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the National Football League for more than five decades and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee. He is a national columnist for The Sports Xchange. ' ' '