The NHL's holiday break provides a brief, welcome respite from the grind of an 82-game regular season.
Ideally, a team would be able to head into the break with a win as the last thing they did, and carry that good feeling through the Christmas holiday.
The Penguins fell just short of that.
Thursday's meeting with the Hurricanes was the Penguins' last thing on the agenda before the holiday break, and the Penguins ended up on the wrong side of a tight 3-2 overtime loss.
The mood in the locker room afterward was understandably a sour one after the Penguins twice squandered leads in the game and then gave away the extra overtime point in a matter of 23 seconds.