Less than a year ago, as the Penguins were stumbling along and in real danger of sitting out the Stanley Cup playoffs, general manager Ray Shero regularly received text messages of encouragement from his Steelers counterpart, Kevin Colbert.

Lately, Shero has been the one sending those notes. And presumably having ever-greater difficulty explaining to Colbert why he should keep his chin up.

With five consecutive losses that have dropped their record to 6-7, the Steelers are in peril of sitting out the NFL playoffs, of going from champions to also-rans in a matter of months.

And, in the process, they are giving the Penguins a vivid reminder that winning the Stanley Cup in June came with no guarantee of success the following season.

"That's good proof," goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. "They were so good."

So are the Penguins, who raised their record to 22-10-1 with a 3-2 overtime victory against Florida Saturday night. But recognizing that virtually every team they face is a legitimate threat to beat them probably has contributed as much to the Penguins' achievements in 2009-10 as their talent level.

"In any sports nowadays, maybe with the exception of the New Jersey Nets, there's so much parity that you can't take any team or any game for granted," defenseman Mark Eaton said. "You can't just show up, even if you have a better team on paper."

Especially when you are a defending champion.

"Every team is up to play the team that wins the Cup," Shero said. "We fill [road] buildings, which is great, but every game, [opponents] want to prove a point.

"It's a great measuring stick for your team. But it certainly is a challenge. And if you have some injuries, it makes things a little more difficult."

The Penguins have had to cope with injuries; they've lost 111 man-games, and Saturday marked the first time this season they weren't missing at least one guy because of a physical problem. They have not, however, had to deal with anything resembling complacency as they prepare to face Philadelphia tomorrow.

"I don't see that at all," Eaton said. "Every guy in here, you can tell with every practice and every time we hit the ice, we're striving to become a better team."

Mike Rupp got bumped to the fourth line against Florida, and logged a team-low 6 minutes and 8 seconds of ice time.

He made the most of it, though, recording three hits and doing some excellent blue-collar work to set up the Penguins' second goal, which was Ruslan Fedotenko's first in 14 games.

"It was a great play by Mike Rupp, putting it behind their [defense], going in and taking two guys out," coach Dan Bylsma said.

"It was a forechecking goal where we create that turnover and we do it by putting it behind their [defensemen] and then [Evgeni Malkin] makes a great pass as [Fedotenko] is going to the goal for us."

Flyers rookie James Van Riemsdyk was the NHL's Rookie of the Month for November, and was starting to turn up in some conversations about the U.S. Olympic team.

Van Riemsdyk, though, enters the Flyers' game in Boston tonight with no goals in his past 12 games.

That's hardly Philadelphia's only problem these days, however, and getting his game back in synch apparently isn't very high on the Flyers' to-do list.

"We haven't had time to work on anything, to get involved on different things that might help him," Peter Laviolette, who replaced John Stevens as coach five games ago, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We're kind of wrapped up in game-to-game [matters] right now.

"It's been fast and furious. When we get some time, settle in, maybe we'll worry about that a little bit."

The Penguins did not practice yesterday, but did hold team a Christmas party. ... Flyers winger Simon Gagne, who has missed 21 games after having abdominal surgery, could return to the lineup this week.

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.