Looking Back at Pittsburgh's Season-Long Road Trip

The Penguins travel back to Pittsburgh today following their season-long six-game road trip that began in Philadelphia on Jan. 6 and wrapped up last night in Las Vegas. And they couldn't have ended it on a better note, battling back from an early 3-0 deficit to defeat the Golden Knights by a score of 5-3 at T-Mobile Arena.

"This road trip, we go 4-2, pretty good road trip points-wise for us," veteran forward Jeff Carter said. "I think it probably wasn't our best hockey, but we found ways to win hockey games, and that's what you need to do. You're not gonna have your best every night, but you gotta find a way to get the job done."
The Penguins started the road trip off with a 6-2 win over the Flyers at Wells Fargo Center, which was their 10th consecutive victory. Bryan Rust and Jake Guentzel each scored twice in that game, which was their second in as many nights after topping St. Louis at home the day before.
Pittsburgh's win streak was snapped two days later in Dallas, with the Stars climbing out of a 2-0 hole to eventually top the Penguins 3-2 at American Airlines Center. From there, the Penguins headed to California, with Evgeni Malkin recording a three-point night in his season debut, a 4-1 win over Anaheim on Jan. 11 at Honda Center.
Next up on the West Coast swing was Los Angeles, who defeated Pittsburgh 6-2 on Jan. 13 at Crypto.com Arena, a game where the Penguins just didn't have their best. And usually, this group tends to respond the right way when things don't go their way, but they struggled in that regard during their matchup with San Jose on Jan. 15 at SAP Center.
Fortunately, goaltender Louis Domingue produced a terrific performance and was able to keep his teammates in it as they didn't play the type of game they are capable of throughout the first 40 minutes. And eventually, Guentzel scored the overtime winner in a 2-1 victory. But despite getting the right result, head coach Mike Sullivan said everyone knew they needed to find a way to recapture their identity after getting away from it a bit.
"The season is going to have its ebbs and flows, and these last couple of games is probably the first time we've hit a little bit of a bump in the road as far as just living up to our own standard and what the expectations are within our room," he said. "And it's important that we figure that out together, and that's just something that I think we need to do moving forward."
They knew it would be a big challenge against a group like the Golden Knights, who are one of the best teams in the league and currently sit atop the Pacific Division. And Vegas quickly showed the type of game theyare capable of, scoring three quick goals to take a 3-0 lead into the first intermission.
"To be down three-nothing and at the end of a long road trip, I think it would have been easy to kind of start feeling sorry for ourselves and pack it in, in a sense," defenseman Mike Matheson said. "And we did the complete opposite. That was huge for us."
Sullivan pointed to the character in the Penguins dressing room, crediting the team's leadership for stepping up and not allowing the game to spiral completely out of reach.
"We know we haven't played our best hockey throughout this trip, and I think we wanted to come into the night and have a really solid 60 minutes," Carter said. "We're gonna call it a solid 40 minutes now, but guys dug deep. That's a heck of a hockey team over there. We had to work and earn everything that we got tonight. And I think up and down throughout the lineup, we got contributions from everybody."
The Penguins took charge from the drop of the puck in the second period, recording the first 13 shots of the frame and getting on the scoresheet with a power-play goal from Jason Zucker, with Teddy Blueger tallying just 49 seconds later.
Zucker - who returned to the lineup after missing seven games with a lower-body injury - struck again just 28 seconds into third period, Guentzel gave Pittsburgh the lead less than two minutes later, and Sidney Crosby got an empty-netter late in regulation to seal the victory.
"Those are the type of games that when you get into the playoffs and things aren't going your way, you think back to those games," Matheson said. "That's a great hockey team that we just played, and we were able to come back from a three-nothing deficit against them. That builds a lot of confidence in our group."
The Penguins will now play seven of their next eight games in the friendly confines of PPG Paints Arena, where they'll look to carry this momentum on.
"It's good maybe learning experiences for us as we go through this, and something that we can definitely build on," Carter said. "As we head home here, we got some home games coming up that we can keep rolling."