Could be that Jarkko Ruutu simply needed time to get acclimated, to become comfortable with his new teammates, city and conference.

	Peter Diana, Post-Gazette The Penguins' Jarkko Ruutu scores on a penalty shot against Maple Leafs goalie Andrew Raycroft Jan. 20 at Mellon Arena. Click photo for larger image. More Coverage: Penguins Notebook: Recchi turns 39 today, ages like fine wine

That would be a pretty good explanation for why his play in the first half of the season ran the gamut from lackluster to uninspired much of the time.

But it's not one Ruutu has any interest in putting forth.

"I don't really look at it that way," he said yesterday. "I don't want to give myself an excuse."

Of course, if Ruutu continues to play the way he has the past few weeks, he probably won't need many excuses anytime soon.

While he is hardly the only reason the Penguins enter their game against Montreal at 7:38 tonight at Mellon Arena on a 6-0-1 roll, Ruutu is looking a lot like the guy the Penguins thought they were getting when they signed him as a free agent last summer.

"It's obvious that I've been playing better lately," he said.

Ruutu has been visible and effective all over the ice, playing the body, tormenting opponents -- he's the kind of player who would have a sizeable bounty on his head if such things were legal -- and even putting up points in three of the past four games.

"There's no doubt he's playing his best hockey since the beginning of the year," coach Michel Therrien said.

Ruutu is playing on a line with Dominic Moore and Ronald Petrovicky, a blue-collar group whose members have found ways to generate a little offense, too.

Like early in the second period of the Penguins' 3-0 victory against Florida Tuesday, when a Ruutu feed to Moore from behind the Panthers' goal line set up their second goal.

"Jarkko's deceiving," Moore said. "He has the ability to make plays."

That pass gave Ruutu assists in consecutive games for just the second time this season. Precedent suggests he isn't likely to, say, wipe out the 69-point lead Sidney Crosby has over him in the team scoring race, but Ruutu believes his offensive output -- and every other aspect of his game -- can be upgraded.

"I know I have the ability to be better than I've shown," he said. "By far."

He has given the Penguins precisely what they want the past few weeks. The goals and assists are nice, but it's his prickly style that convinced them to offer him a contract.

"He's a tough guy to play against," Therrien said. "We wanted to add character to our team over the summer, and he was part of it."

Ruutu has an obvious knack for agitating opponents. He can be the human equivalent of a pebble in the skate, yapping and poking and prodding and doing everything imaginable to distract opposing players.

But as adept as Ruutu can be at filling that role, even he can't execute it well from the bench, which is where he spent an inordinate amount of time during the early months of this season. He's never going to log Crosby-type minutes, but Ruutu rarely has gotten into double-figures.

Therrien's decision to limit his workload was an understandable reaction to Ruutu's play. Even a guy who isn't counted on to score goals shouldn't go 43 games without one, as Ruutu did. But trapped him in a cycle of reduced playing time that led to reduced effectiveness, which led to further cuts in ice time.

It is no coincidence, Ruutu said, that he has done a better job of getting under opponents' skin since he began to be on the ice a little more often.

"If you don't have a regular shift every now and then, you can't do that, because you sit in the [penalty] box," Ruutu said. "The refs are looking for you. When you get a regular shift, you can get a lot more emotion going, a lot more rivalry [with other players]."

His performance of late has put Ruutu on the other side of the ice-time cycle. Now that he is playing more, he is accomplishing more, and that gives Therrien incentive to try to get him on the ice more.

"It's always been my philosophy, when a guy's doing his role, when a guy's playing well, he's going to have ice time," Therrien said. "When I see a guy who's on top of his game, I'm going to play him."

That means Ruutu probably should expect to spend 10 or 12 minutes on the ice tonight. Especially if he continues to give the Penguins the grit and solid two-way game they've gotten from him so often lately.

"We were excited over the summer when we signed him," Therrien said. "And he's starting to pay off now."