BOSTON – The Magic Carpet Ride has taken the Pittsburgh Penguins here, there and everywhere these last few months. Which is great news for hockey fans, not so good news for a team looking to reestablish itself as the cream of the crop in the highly competitive Eastern Conference.

“It’s tough,” winger Petr Sykora said. “People don’t realize how much the playoffs can take out of you. And when they’re over, you really only have a month or two to try and get ready for next season.”

So one could easily assume a trip across the pond would be the last thing these Penguins wanted. Not so, according to those in the dressing room. Trading in dollars for krona and a week in Sweden broke up an otherwise grueling training camp and allowed the team to bond around a new cast of players.

“You’re with guys 24/7,” Sykora said. “You’re doing stuff with them not only on the ice, but off the ice as well. It was something I went through last year when we went to West Point and it really helped me get to know my teammates better and have some fun.”

The emphasis on team chemistry is vital, even more so for captain Sidney Crosby, who admits that such a trip would have happened even if it wasn't mandated by the league.

“If it was another year, we’d probably go somewhere together anyway,” Crosby said. “It ended up being Europe and it was good to see everybody come together.”

And then you have players like Brooks Orpik who just can’t escape the ice.

“Everyone said it was going to be a short summer,” Orpik said. “It was pretty long for me. I’ve been on the other side of the spectrum where you get five or six months because you don’t make the playoffs. You get to June and you just want to kill yourself. So I’ll take that summer any day.”

Speaking of summer vacations, the Penguins offense might still be on one. Coming into last Saturday's tilt against Toronto, a game in which Crosby notched the 100th goal, 200th assist and his 300th point of his career, the Pittsburgh offense had been held to just 12 goals over the season's first five games.

And it was more of the same last night as Penguins managed to beat Tim Thomas just once in 65 minutes of thrilling, back and fourth hockey. The last 90 seconds of which spent with both Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on the ice in either a four on three advantage, or a three-on-two and a half advantage, after Patrice Bergeron's stick broke on the last face off in regulation, forcing him to fill the shooting lanes with his body.

Surely, the lack of a scoring presence is only a temporary setback. The Penguins do however, have major issues on the blue line. Somebody has to get Crosby and his talented line mates the puck, anchor special teams situations, not to mention help out Marc Andre Fleury handle the workload.

And that’s not an easy task with Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney out until the All Star Break … at the earliest.

“We’re trying to be solid defensively as we can and rely on our forwards,” said Hal Gill. We have great forwards that can handle the scoring and we have to make sure we get it to them. It’s a huge minus for us not having those guys, but as a core defensively, we’ve been strong and we have to continue to be consistent.”

And finding that consistency in a season that has been anything but thus far will play a huge role in the success of the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins.

“I think what we have going for us is that we have such a young team and it is so much easier to recover having Sid and Geno out there flying again,” Sykora said. It really keeps the team going.”