The Penguins are less than two weeks removed from the Olympic break, easily the longest of the season.

Beginning Feb. 15, they will go nine days with no team activities, followed by six with nothing except practices.

The Penguins, though, have five more games to play before the NHL shuts down. And before they get to the first of those, Saturday afternoon in Montreal, the Penguins will have to go through the second-longest interruption of their season.

The timing is peculiar, to be sure. Especially when their four days off are sandwiched by sets of games on consecutive days (home victories Sunday and Monday against Detroit and Buffalo followed by visits to Montreal and Washington this weekend).

But in a season in which the Olympic Games have had an impact on the schedule of nearly every team, the Penguins are shrugging off this block of time off as simply the latest in a series of odd wrinkles.

"We can't do anything about it," winger Ruslan Fedotenko said, "so it doesn't matter whether we complain or not."

Mind you, the Penguins couldn't be blamed for grumbling at least a little, given that they're 4-1 in their past five games and coming off those victories against the Red Wings and Sabres.

"We're on a good roll right now, with the last two wins," goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. "But at the same time, a little break, I think, will be nice.

"We've been playing a lot lately -- all year -- it's been such a busy schedule, so it will be nice to rest."

Coach Dan Bylsma gave his players a chance to do that Tuesday, but they will resume practicing this morning. And there will be plenty to keep them busy before they leave Friday for Montreal.

Today's workout and the two that will follow figure to focus on more efficient execution, something that has been an issue because the compressed schedule has reduced the amount of practice time available in 2009-10.

"You don't have the time in between [games] where you feel you can really push the guys," assistant coach Mike Yeo said. "And your practice length has to be a little shorter to make sure you don't wear them down."

Not only are there fewer days between games -- except, of course, for when they're coming in chunks of four or 15 days -- but more of them must be set aside to keep players relatively fresh. And when there are fewer practices, there generally is less attention to detail, something that has been evident in the Penguins' performance for much of the season.

"Consistency-wise, we've slipped a little bit in some areas, and that's only normal because we haven't had that opportunity to work on them in practice," Yeo said, citing play without the puck as one aspect that will be emphasized in practice this week.

"It's one thing to be in position, it's another thing to be in position and using the details that make you successful in that position. There are some things we can go over and reinforce."

The Penguins actually have made some progress, particularly on defensive-zone coverages the past few games. But there's a danger that getting out of the rhythm of playing could cause as many problems as having extra time to practice solves.

Players, though, downplayed such concerns.

"As a team, we're starting to feel that our game's coming around now," forward Mike Rupp said. "It's exciting, and I don't think we'll let a few days [without a game] get in the way of that.

"When things are going pretty well, you want to keep playing, but also we look at it more as we've been waiting for a little bit of a break for a while, and we're getting that this week. We can heal up some little nagging things and be 100 percent when the games come."

For now, those games against the Canadiens and Capitals seem a long way off, especially for a team that's coming off a run of 19 games in 37 days.

So might the Penguins have been better off if their next game were, say, Thursday instead of Saturday? Quite possibly, although there is no way of being certain.

In any case, it doesn't seem as if the players and coaches plan to spend any time fretting about that, or any other aspect of their four-day break.

"You can analyze anything, but that's just the way it is," right winger Bill Guerin said. "It's not a big deal."

NOTES -- Bylsma has been behind the Penguins' bench for 82 games, the equivalent of a full season. His record is 53-24-5, which translates to 111 points. The franchise record is 119, set in 1992-93. ... Forwards Mark Letestu and Nick Johnson were returned to the Penguins' American Hockey League team in Wilkes-Barre.

Penguins Plus, a blog by Dave Molinari and Shelly Anderson, is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.