The Pittsburgh Penguins are on a hot run, but aren't perfect and are learning from the mistakes.

PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Penguins are closing in on a solid month of outstanding play and have almost completely turned their season around after nearly hitting the basement of the Eastern Conference. In their last 13 games, the Penguins are 9-3-1 and just a single win outside of a playoff spot.

According to head coach Mike Sullivan, a big reason for the turnaround is the team’s collective effort and completely buying into playing the right way.

“I just think we’re doing a better job playing to our identity,” Sullivan said. “And what I mean by that is, I think we’re playing a more calculated game. We’re not playing a reckless game.”

Despite the 9-3-1 run, the Penguins have still taken a few tough losses, one of them being a 7-0 beatdown at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Sullivan believes that the Penguins can learn how to win through those sorts of losses.

“Any time you go through a humbling experience like that, it forces all of us to look in the mirror and soul search,” Sullivan said. “We learn more from our failures than we do our successes. That’s when we’re most vulnerable. That’s when you’re more inclined to take an honest look at yourself and ourselves as a team and say, ‘Okay how do we get better here?’”

There are still a few areas of the lineup that could use improvement, but overall, the Penguins seem to be learning from their mistakes. Taking the negatives and turning them into positives is something Sullivan continued to preach the importance of to his team.

“We have a group that has had a fair amount of success in this league,” Sullivan said. “But has also had a fair amount of failures because it’s hard to win the Stanley Cup every year. You learn from those experiences. The most important thing is you learn how to win.”

The Penguins flipped a four-game losing streak into this nine-win trend and will have tough battles ahead of them to sit back in a playoff spot. First us is one of the best teams in the Western Conference the Vancouver Canucks, then on the road to take on Metropolitan Division rival Carolina Hurricanes.

If the Penguins can pull out at least one more win in the next two games, they will likely enter a new week with a playoff spot and a new level of confidence not seen since the season opened.

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