The Seattle-western Canada road trip has been unkind to the Penguins in recent years.

They were swept out west last year, losing in Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver (and then again to Seattle later in the year. In 2023-24, they eked out an overtime win against the Canucks to open the trip before going on to put forth disastrous showings against the Kraken, Flames and Oilers. The year before that, the Penguins had the trip early in the year, and after starting the season without a regulation loss in five games, the four losses out in Seattle and western Canada started a seven-game skid, derailing a good start in what ended up being their first time missing the playoffs in 16 years.

This swing out west always seems to come at a consequential time in the season schedule, and in recent history, either set the Penguins off course or dug them deeper into a hole.

If this year’s trip ends up being a tone-setter for the rest of the way, that’s a great thing for the Penguins, after Sunday’s 3-2 win over the Canucks completed the four-game sweep out west.

This latest win had a tight start, with both teams scoreless after 20 minutes. Evgeni Malkin broke the scoring open in the second period off an odd-man rush, then Ben Kindel added two goals to make it a three-goal game. The Canucks added two in the third — first a rebound attempt from Jake DeBrusk, and then a deflection from Teddy Blueger — but the Penguins held off the Canucks’ late push and Stuart Skinner finished with 30 of 32 shots to seal the win.

The trip had the Penguins playing in a variety of situations, against different kinds of teams. These Canucks are awful, with one win in their last 14 games, but sometimes avoiding playing down to the competition — especially when tired at the end of a long road trip — is a challenge in itself, and one the Penguins handled well. Arturs Silovs and the Penguins held Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl pointless in a 6-2 win over the high-powered Oilers after a historically good start. The second line totally took over in a 4-1 win over the Flames, and the fourth line shone in a 6-3 win over a team fighting for playoff position in the Kraken.

In the trip as a whole, the Penguins:

• Outscored opponents 19-8, including 16-6 at five-on-five

• Scored first in all four games, and never trailed in the third period

• Went 6-for-7 on the penalty-kill and scored a shorthanded goal

• Had a combined .925 save percentage

The common thread throughout the trip, the Penguins think, is that they just kept finding ways to win.

“It’s good things we’ve been doing all year,” Kindel said when I asked what was behind the sweep. “Playing as a team, sticking together, gutting out wins. I mean, there’s been a couple of tough games, but we just found ways to win. It’s a testament to our group.”

“We put our put our foot forward,” said Skinner. “We were able to play a strong 60-minute game every single game. I think if you look back on all these games, it was very consistent play. And I think us playing that way always gives us a chance to win, and we were able to battle some games, some tight games. Being out west, there’s a lot of hard teams to play against, so huge kudos to the guys in this room.”

Dan Muse believes that the differences in the games and the way they were able to still find ways to win is something that will benefit them moving forward.

“We stuck with it,” Muse said. “You could feel it on the bench. It was going to be OK. This is part of it. There’s going to be momentum shifts, but we’re just going to focus in on our game and our next shift and what we can control. Every game was a little bit different, but I think there’s been some real positive things that we can take away from all of them.”

The Penguins entered this trip just barely in playoff position with a one-point lead over the Capitals. They’re going back to Pittsburgh in second place in the Metropolitan Division, four points ahead of the third-place Islanders and six points behind the first-place Hurricanes with a game in hand.

With such a tight race and 31 games left in the season, there’s a lot of time for teams to gain or lose room. The eight points from this trip are nice, but only a small fraction of that they’ll need to get into the playoffs. They’ll need to take the momentum and lessons from this trip and carry that the rest of the way.

“At the end of the day we’re fighting for points every single night,” Muse said. “It’s good to be in this position where every game has a lot of meaning. I think the guys are showing that, based on how we’re coming to play.”