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So much has changed since the last time Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Joe Corvo faced the Penguins in the postseason.

The former Ottawa Senators player thought back to a 2007 first-round playoff series between the Penguins and Senators and explained that Pittsburgh is not the same team he remembers from two years ago.

Corvo and Carolina teammate Patrick Eaves helped the Senators win that series, 4-1. They advanced to the Stanley Cup final and lost to Anaheim.

Since then, the Penguins have morphed into a more mature and multidimensional team.

In 2007, the Pens were more of a one-man show, Corvo recalls, but now Sidney Crosby has better offensive support, most notably NHL regular-season points leader Evgeni Malkin.

Here they are again - Corvo, Eaves and the Penguins - but this time battling to punch their own ticket to the Stanley Cup final. The fight will continue tonight when the Penguins, who are ahead 1-0 in this best-of-seven series, host the Hurricanes for Game 2 at 7:30 p.m. at Mellon Arena.

"Obviously, they have better players," Corvo said. "Everything doesn't lie on Sid's shoulders as it did then. I think Malkin is probably playing a lot better. Those are the differences. I thought that they didn't have a lot of offensive weapons then. Now they have a little bit more."

Making their first playoff appearance in five seasons in 2006-07, the Penguins' charge was led by a 19-year-old Crosby. He scored a goal in each of the first three games of that series before the five-game bout ended with a 3-0 Senators' victory.

The Penguins made an early exit that year, but the experience paved the way for the Penguins' run to the Stanley Cup final the next season.

Two years later - older, wiser and more poised - the Penguins are trying to get back to the final, where they lost to the Detroit Red Wings in six games last season.

"They went to the final so they're going to feel a lot better, a lot more comfortable about being in the playoffs and about their chances to get back," Corvo said. "You definitely sense that out there. They're a team that's been there before."

Having been "there" with the Senators was a completely different experience than Corvo has had during this postseason run with the Hurricanes. Though Eaves said he sees some similarities - great leadership and goaltending, specifically - between the Hurricanes and the Senators, Corvo doesn't see any.

"In Ottawa, we were pretty one-dimensional," Corvo said. "We had one line that could score. If they weren't scoring, we were in trouble.

"This team, I think if the first line is not scoring, we have other lines that can chip in with a goal and have that feeling. That's the difference."

The Hurricanes have taken a different road than the Senators did two years ago. It only took the Senators 15 games to get to the final. The Hurricanes are already 15 games deep entering Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final.

"We breezed through with Ottawa - 4-1, 4-1, 4-1 - so it's a totally different feel," Corvo said. "This is a team we feel like we have to work for everything that we get. Nothing is easy. We make it hard on ourselves, and we like to battle back. We're a stubborn team that has to work really hard."

Corvo, Eaves and the Penguins learned from that series in 2007. The Penguins have pushed past the first round twice. Eaves and Corvo can draw on that Stanley Cup run and apply it to this one.

"We always knew we had a good team, and we came together at the right time," Eaves said. "We were healthy and rollin'. As you get farther and farther in the playoffs, you realize what you can do together."

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