The Penguins fell behind Edmonton, 3-1, on Tuesday and looked like they were headed for defeat as the Oilers really dominated the first 25-30 minutes of the game.
And then the Penguins did to the Oilers what they have done to a number of teams this year. They turned on the jets and blew them out of the building.
Ok, they only won the game 4-3, but in the final 30 minutes, they won 3-0 and looked every bit the part of the Stanley Cup champion that many believe is good enough to repeat.
The Oilers are young, fast and skilled, and yet, when the Penguins got interested in playing their game, Edmonton couldn't keep up.
That's what the Penguins can do to teams. We have seen it time and time again this season _ and therein lies a troubling trend.
My concern for the Penguins isn't that they aren't good enough to win the Stanley Cup (they are) and it isn't that they have had some injuries (it is part of the game). My concern is whether or not they can avoid this trap of thinking they can flip a switch and play their game anytime they need to in order to win games.
They have done it several times, but I don't think it's a good plan to continue to slop their way through the season and believe they can turn it on when the playoffs begin. That is nearly impossible to do.
The 82-game grind is long and hard, and this is a team that we have seen in the past get bored and, for lack of a better term, lose focus.
They have gone through stretches of bad play or uninspired play and lost games in February and March, and the thinking was always, "Well, when the playoffs come, they will flip that switch."
The problem is, after 2009, that didn't happen until last season. And last season, the switch was flipped in late December when Mike Sullivan was hired and the Penguins played great hockey for the better part of the final two months.
We have seen the best the Penguins have to offer, and when they are playing their game, they are the best team in the NHL. I'm not sure, other that Tampa Bay, there is a close second.
But we have seen too many of these kinds of games _ San Jose a few weeks ago, the Florida game, the Flyers game Oct. 29, this game Tuesday _ where the Penguins are sloppy or look a bit disinterested early before turning it on and coming back and winning.
It isn't realistic to believe the Penguins can play 82 games at full throttle, and there are going to be bumps along the way.
We got to see a snapshot of what it would like on the West Coast when they blew out Anaheim and San Jose.
Both of those games showed how special this team can be when it plays its game for a full 60 minutes.
I just worry that this team, because of these stretches where they have played so well, is going to get a false sense of how good it actually is or at least forget the things that made it a great team last season.
Sullivan's greatest challenge is going to be finding ways to make the players uncomfortable at times, finding ways to motivate them to play the right way consistently and finding ways to keep his message fresh.
He has done a pretty good job by tweaking the lineup, changing line combinations and dressing and scratching different players, and that is something he needs to continue to do to keep this team interested once the dog days of the season start to drag on.
The talent on the Penguins is not a question, and it still has an excellent mix of veterans and youth and can win games in a lot of different ways.
It is a long way between now and the playoffs, and the Penguins are just scratching the surface of what they can be. But they need to keep working on getting better and lose the idea that they can flip a switch anytime they want.
A repeat is possible, but they need to understand the journey to the Stanley Cup this past season began during the season, and not at the start of the playoffs.
