CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Time is the ultimate master over us all.

It's relentless. Unyielding.

But sometimes there are small victories. Moments when the industrious and the driven can push time into the shadows.

Moments that say, "I am not done. I will not be defined by how old I am, or by how many games I've played."

It's what makes the performance of 39-year-old Matt Cullen this spring so enthralling. Perhaps even inspiring.

A man who believed he had given all he could when he and the Nashville Predators were eliminated in the first round by the Chicago Blackhawks last April is enjoying the kind of renaissance that is the stuff of dreams.

"After the last game in Chicago, Game 6, I remember sitting, taking a minute," Cullen said Monday. "It was kind of an emotional day. I kind of thought that that was probably it. Mike Fisher came in, and we talked for a little bit. I thought there was a real good chance that that was it."

Cullen returned to his home in Minnesota, and he and wife Bridget spent time with their three boys and talked about the future. He started training in part to help recover from the long season and in part because, well, he still wasn't sure what he wanted to do.

"You don't know until you go through it," he said. "It's kind of a funny, weird deal."

So he trained as though he could play, even though he didn't know if anyone would want him to. And then, late in the summer, Cullen got a call from a familiar voice: Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford.

Rutherford had built a Stanley Cup winner with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006, a team that included Cullen, and the veteran GM wanted Cullen to join his Penguins.

"I told him if he didn't sign I'd tell all his dirty secrets," Rutherford said.

Then Rutherford laughed.

"There probably are none," he said.

It's a delicate balance, bringing in older "character" guys whose ability to produce has been chiseled away by injury or time or fatigue. But almost every night this spring, Rutherford has been vindicated in his signing of Cullen.

"When the stakes are high, he is about as even-keeled a player as you can find," Rutherford said.

Cullen won a Stanley Cup with Carolina in 2006. Dave Sandford/Getty Images

After scoring 16 times during the regular season, his highest total since 2008-09, Cullen has continued to impress during the postseason. He has three goals, two of which have been game winners, and two assists. He has points in four separate games, all of which have been Pittsburgh victories. He has played most often with guys nearly half his age -- Tom Kuhnhackl, 24, and Bryan Rust, 23 -- and is often called upon to take key faceoffs against the opposing team's top lines.

In Game 5 on Saturday night, when the Penguins were trailing the Washington Capitals by two goals and coach Mike Sullivan shortened his bench, Cullen spent time playing with captain Sidney Crosby. Game 6 is Tuesday night, 8 ET.

"I don't know if I have ever had more fun playing the game," Cullen said. "I'm appreciating the opportunity a lot more. And it's just all about making another run trying to win another Cup.

"It's brought me a lot more clarity at this point in my career."

Kevyn Adams roomed with Cullen during the championship season with the Hurricanes and is rooting unabashedly for Cullen to get a second ring.

"Oh man, absolutely," said Adams, who now runs the junior Buffalo Sabres organization, as well as a hockey academy in Buffalo. "His skating to me looks like it's as good as it's ever been."

Combine that with his hockey intelligence and it's no surprise Cullen's still playing.

"On that team 10 years ago, he was one of the most underrated pieces of our success," Adams added.

Bret Hedican, another member of that Cup-winning team, echoes those sentiments.

"I am just so proud of the way this guy has played his whole career," said Hedican, now an analyst for the San Jose Sharks. "He might have been one of our best players. I remember how great he played in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals [in 2006]."

So, Cullen is where he didn't think he'd be, doing things that most people couldn't imagine him doing at his age. And the best part isn't all of the accolades and the attention, but that he gets to share these moments with his wife and three boys.

After Game 4 of this second-round series against the Capitals, a game in which Cullen scored and also rang one off the crossbar, his boys were giving him a hard time about the missed opportunity.

"Right away," Cullen recalled with a laugh. "Not even 'good game' -- nothing. Just, 'Dad, you've got to score that one.'"

These moments are not lost on Cullen.

The boys, ages 6, 7 and 9, have a tutor who helps with online courses and often combine schooling and skating at the Penguins' practice facility.

They are an integral part of their father's potentially final steps along a hockey journey that has spanned almost 1,300 regular-season games.

"As a dad, it's the best thing I can give those boys," Cullen said. "And it's, for me, it's the coolest thing.

"My dad was a high school hockey coach, so I grew up idolizing the high school hockey players, and these guys get to come into the locker room with Sid [Crosby] and Geno [Evgeni Malkin] and all the guys. It's pretty special, and I realize that. I've really taken advantage of it this year and really brought them in more than I probably normally would and had them around a lot. It's been pretty awesome."

If you're thinking that all of this success has Cullen thinking beyond this season, you'd be wrong.

"I made a conscious decision partway through the year -- when things were going well and we really were starting to enjoy it -- that I wasn't even going to think about," Cullen said. "Bridget and I don't even talk about it. I just want to appreciate it and stay in it as much as possible."

Spoken like a man who understands that any victories over time are to be savored and not rushed.