The five-game road trip that ended barely more than a year ago still resonates for the Penguins.

The team was languishing below the playoff line and had won just two of its previous 12 road games when it faced a daunting stretch -- a luggage-busting trek to Chicago, Dallas, Tampa Bay, Florida and Washington.

"It was a big definition trip. Where's the season going to go? What would we do with 10 points on the line?" Penguins winger Pascal Dupuis recalled. "And we won five straight."

That trip, which ended March 8, 2009, became the only 5-0 road swing in franchise history and helped launch the Penguins toward a Stanley Cup championship run.

Now comes the sequel.

The Penguins play their next five games on the road -- Thursday at Carolina, Friday at New Jersey, Sunday at Tampa Bay, next Wednesday back in New Jersey and March 18 at Boston (although they will make a quick stop at home between the Tampa Bay and second New Jersey games).

There are some parallels to last year's long, late-season trip -- the obvious one being the timing, coming as teams jockey for position down the stretch of the regular season.

"Last year, those five games built our team into something stronger," defenseman Kris Letang said. "Going into the playoffs, you want to have confidence. You don't want to have a bad trip going into the playoffs."

In addition, the Penguins had begun to play better a year ago, going 3-1-1 in the games between the coaching change that brought in Dan Bylsma and the start of the five-game trip. This time, the Penguins are 4-0 since the Olympic break.

"We're playing well, but we can do better," Letang said.

There are also some things that make this trip quite different -- most notably the position the Penguins are in at the start of it. They sit atop the Atlantic Division, in second place in the Eastern Conference, comfortably above the playoff mark and in good shape for home-ice advantage in the playoffs with 84 points in 66 games.

They also have fared better on the road to this point, going 19-12-1.

Although Bylsma noted that "our attention is on how we're playing and not where we're playing," he isn't overlooking his team's success away from Mellon Arena.

"I take pretty good pride in the number of wins we've had on the road to this point. ... We've put some games together, but now we have new challenges: the opponents we're playing and where we're playing them, on the road," Bylsma said.

Last year's trip featured two seldom-seen teams from the Western Conference, a languishing team in Tampa Bay, a club competing with the Penguins for a playoff spot in Florida, and rival Washington, which had won the teams' first three meetings.

The Penguins swept that trip while adjusting on the fly to lineup changes. The NHL trade deadline sprung up in the middle of the journey, and the Penguins traded for Bill Guerin, who instantly stepped in as a linemate for top center Sidney Crosby, and plucked defensive forward Craig Adams off waivers.

This time, the Penguins are more stable going into the trip. They don't have a new coach and they have already passed the trade deadline, adding winger Alexei Ponikarovsky and defenseman Jordan Leopold last week.

Each team on the upcoming trip represents a certain story line.

The Penguins are 0-4 against New Jersey, and the two head-to-head games could help determine the division title.

"That's a team we've struggled with," defenseman Brooks Orpik said.

Carolina had a miserable first half of the season but has won eight of its past nine games going into its contest tonight at Washington, and has won seven home games in a row as it desperately tries to get back into playoff contention.

Tampa Bay is where the Penguins were last season, in the thick of the race for the final playoff spot.

The Boston game represents a rematch from Sunday, when the Penguins won, 2-1, at Mellon Arena in a game remembered more for a hit by Penguins winger Matt Cooke on Bruins center Marc Savard, who received a concussion.

"We're playing some teams that are really close to us, and some teams that are battling for a playoff spot," Dupuis said. "They will be big games, but we feel pretty good about ourselves right now."

NOTES -- General manager Ray Shero blasted criticism Crosby received for declining an opportunity to present the Top Ten List on the "Late Show with David Letterman" during a week when Crosby's schedule was brimming with media and promotional requests. "There's no one in the history of the game, [not] Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux, that's done more to promote the NHL than Sidney Crosby," Shero said. ... There was no word from the NHL on a possible suspension for Cooke for his hit on Savard. ... Jerseys worn by Orpik at the recent Olympics are among the items being auctioned to benefit the USA Hockey Foundation. Visit auction.nhl.com. ... The Penguins were off Tuesday.

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