Pittsburgh Penguins Defense Will Help Team Overcome Pascal Dupuis' Absence

For decades, the Pittsburgh Penguins' template for success was to rely on skilled skaters to outscore the opposition. This season, Pittsburgh has added a strong defensive component to its arsenal.

A commitment to playing well on both sides of the puck should help the Penguins keep winning games despite the absence of one of their best two-way players, right wing Pascal Dupuis. There's a lot more to this year's team than a world-class top line.

When the Penguins won their first Stanley Cups, they finished 18th in goals against in 1990-91 and 20th the following season in a 22-team league. During their 2008-09 Cup-winning season, they were 17th out of 30 teams defensively—which was better, but they were still counting on top talents like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to generate lots of goals.

Since that Cup win, the Penguins have remained one of the NHL's top offensive forces. They dropped into a tie for fifth place in goals scored last season but are back at the top of the league in 2014-15 with an average of 3.67 goals per game through November 21.

Pittsburgh needed to rely on that scoring punch to fight back from a 3-1 deficit and earn a point against the New York Islanders on Friday night. But, for the most part, team defense has often been enough to win hockey games this season. 

Through the first 18 games of 2014-15, the Penguins have allowed two goals or fewer 11 times, including four shutouts. They're currently ranked sixth in the league defensively, with an average of 2.17 goals against per game.

New head coach Mike Johnston is getting plenty of praise for his work with the Penguins in the early going, but Josh Yohe of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review points out that new assistant Gary Agnew deserves the lion's share of the credit for the team's stingy defensive numbers.

Agnew most recently served as an assistant coach to Ken Hitchcock with the St. Louis Blues, and he was also an assistant under Hitchcock with the Columbus Blue Jackets. He has also been a head coach at the AHL and major junior levels.

When he was hired by the Penguins in July, Agnew explained to NHL.com how his defensive philosophy is designed to help generate offense:

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If you want to score, you need to have the puck. To get the puck, you need to check. If you don't have the puck, you better know how to get it back. I think there's a plan in place for that. Some may call it a sort of defensive philosophy. I call it an offensive philosophy. It's trying to get the puck back to go score.

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For the most part, it's working. The team's defense is now healthy and has mostly played well, leading to tough decisions for the coaches about who to scratch from the lineup. Simon Despres sat out for Friday's shootout loss when Pittsburgh reverted to its old ways by allowing three first-period goals in 95 seconds to the Islanders. He'll likely draw in for Saturday's rematch.

When Dupuis was sidelined earlier this week with blood clots in his lungs, Pittsburgh lost a key member of its outstanding penalty kill, which is currently ranked third in the league. Dupuis was averaging 2:10 of short-handed ice time per game, but that ranks eighth on the team—and fourth among the forwards behind Marcel Goc, Craig Adams and Brandon Sutter. With the core defensemen and penalty-killing forwards still available, there shouldn't be a significant drop in efficiency within Agnew's system.

Keith Srakocic/Associated Press

"There's less aggression from us," Sutter told Yohe. "We're more patient. There is less running around for the forwards. We're willing to let teams set up."

Agnew has his own theory on why Pittsburgh's penalty-killers are doing so well this year. He told Yohe "his players are getting better defensively because they practice against the NHL's top power play daily."

An early beneficiary of the Penguins' new tighter-checking style is goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, who's off to arguably the best start of his career. His goals-against average of 2.10 and .926 save percentage in 2014-15 are marked improvements over his career averages of 2.61 and .911.

The Penguins are actually allowing more shots this year—29.4 compared to 28.8 last season—but Fleury has been up to the task when he's been needed.

After the brief defensive lapse against the Islanders on Friday night, expect to see the Penguins get back on track for the rematch in Uniondale on Saturday. It's becoming a team trademark for the Penguins to take pride in limiting the oppositions' scoring chances.