OTTAWA, Ontario — Ottawa forward Mike Hoffman was asked to shut down Sidney Crosby. Outscoring Pittsburgh’s captain was a bonus.

Hoffman scored the winner, and Mike Condon made 29 saves to help the Senators beat the Penguins 4-1 on Thursday night.

“The whole idea with Mike is he’s got the speed to skate with anybody in this league,” Ottawa coach Guy Boucher said about Hoffman.

“Since the beginning of the year he’s definitely progressed defensively. It doesn’t take away from his offence as he scored again tonight and he’s got I don’t know how many shots, but he played terrific and when you see players like that growing and becoming really good two-way players you know your team is going in the right direction.”

Bobby Ryan, Tom Pyatt and Mark Stone also scored for Ottawa.

Not only did the Senators avenge an ugly 8-5 loss to the Penguins last month, they handed the defending Stanley Cup champions their first back-to-back regulation-time losses since Dec. 14-19, 2015. Pittsburgh lost 5-2 to Washington on Wednesday night,

Conor Sheary scored for the Penguins. Matt Murray, playing for the first time since suffering a lower-body injury Dec. 28, made 29 saves.

The Penguins didn’t make excuses for their play.

“I would have liked to see that streak continue, but sometimes you need to lose a couple in order to play better,” Crosby said. “We haven’t deserved to win the last couple games.”

Holding a 3-1 lead to start the third, Ottawa held off the Penguins and midway through the period put the game out of reach when Stone scored his 13th of the season.

Frustration was clearly setting in for the Penguins and coach Mike Sullivan was given a game misconduct and ejected with just under two minutes remaining.

“I think we need to recognize when we don’t have our best,” defenseman Ian Cole said.