For Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan Muse, it wasn’t so much what the Penguins did to snap their four-game losing streak.

It’s what they didn’t do.

“You don’t want to be giving easy offense to the opponent,” Muse said. “I thought we did a good job controlling things that way.”

During their recent 0-4 Western Conference road trip — where all four opponents scored at least five goals — that wasn’t the case. Giveaways that led to opposing offense were the norm.

On Thursday night, though, the Penguins avoided such missteps en route to a 4-0 shutout over the Florida Panthers.

“We played structurally better,” goalie Arturs Silovs said. “Defensively, we were more locked in. When we are defending the house, it makes my job much easier.”

In all, this may have been the Penguins’ best game since Opening Night’s 7-0 win over the Philadelphia Flyers. The similarities were abundant.

• Silovs pitched a shutout.

• Nick Robertson scored twice.

• Hendrix Lapierre had a multi-point evening.

• Evgeni Malkin registered a goal.

All those things happened in Philadelphia. Very few of them have happened since. But they were all present on Thursday.

“We had contributions throughout the lineup,” Muse said. “Artie was great (26 saves). We’ve talked about consistency. That (game) was right up there for the most consistent game of the year.”

We could split hairs over what stretch of those 60 minutes was the most important. Was it how the Penguins played with the lead for the first 45 minutes? Or was it how they built it in the first 15?

The Penguins outshot the Panthers 8-4 early on, leading to Robertson’s goal to break a scoreless tie before the first intermission.

What a sweet curl and drag from Nick Robertson ????‍????

(????: SportsNet Pittsburgh) https://t.co/wMyNPb1W8Q

— TSN (@TSN_Sports) October 23, 2026

The Penguins seemed to have fresher legs after the Panthers played the night before in Ottawa. Not only did the Panthers lose that game 5-1, but there was a lot left on the ice emotionally in Brady Tkachuk’s return game in Ottawa. Then the team had to fly across the border, spin around and play Thursday night in Pittsburgh.

Meanwhile, the Pens hadn’t played since Monday night in Utah.

“They had an emotional game. Back-to-back. You’ve got to take advantage,” Robertson said. “Make them skate. Force them to use their legs. Obviously we had an advantage not playing (Wednesday). It turned out well.”

Once the Penguins built their lead, Muse liked how the team performed.

“When it was time to defend, we defended hard,” Muse said. “Driving pucks in, driving pucks behind. I thought there were more elements of that in our game. That’s always going to be important.”

I didn’t hear the word “desperation” from any of the Penguins players during postgame interviews. If someone even used the word “urgency,” I missed that, too.

It’s probably too early for that. Or maybe it’s not, and that sense was present, if just unspoken. Frankly, it probably needed to be present, given how things went out west and with the current health situation (Bryan Rust, Ben Kindel) surrounding the team.

However, the Penguins dialed it up; they need to bottle it for their next two home games against Nashville and Utah. It’s going to take a lot to balance the ill effects of leaving all eight points of that road trip ungathered.

But getting at least five or six at home over this next week of hockey would be a good start before hitting the road again for Halloween in Montreal.

LISTEN: Tim Benz and Brian Metzer talk about the Penguins in their weekly hockey podcast.