Pens' defense playing with confidence

The Pittsburgh Penguins defense has been producing a lot of offense recently.

Four different blueliners tallied at least one point during Monday's 8-5 victory over Ottawa, with Ian Cole and Justin Schultz both stretching their scoring streaks to four games. Schultz continued his on Thursday, with two assists in a 5-1 victory over Florida.
Cole and Schultz have a total of 15 points (4G-11A) between the two of them over the last five games dating back to Nov. 30. Schultz boasts an impressive eight points (3G-5A) during his five-game scoring streak, including three multi-point nights during that span.
"Justin said about a week ago that it was nice to see these things that we've been doing to start to translate to the scoresheet, because I think we've played very well all year," said Cole, who has seven points (1G-6A) in the last five games.
"We've been playing really solid defensively, but also keeping puck possession, keeping pucks in the offensive zone, continuing to generate those plays even without getting points. I don't think we've changed anything from the beginning of the year until now."
The key to the pair's success has been communication.
"We're just comfortable with each other," Schultz said. "We always talk it out, basically after every shift, just letting each other know what we see out there and what we can do better. It's been working."
Although the offensive push is a bright spot, their defensive play can still use some work. As a team, the Pens have scored a combined 24 goals over their four-game win streak; however, they rank in the NHL's bottom-five in goals-against per game.
So while seeing the D-men get on the scoresheet can be exciting, they all agree that it's defense that they're looking to improve on.
"I think we can work on everything defensively," Schultz said. "Away from the puck we could all be in better position and read rushes better. Those are things we can definitely improve on."
The defense also wants to work on limiting their opponent's scoring odds.
"Obviously as a defenseman, you want to take away scoring chances," Trevor Daley said. "That's our main objective, to take away the scoring opportunities, so our offense doesn't need to score eight goals. But we're finding ways to win games and that's what good teams do. At the end of the day, we have to take all the positives we can out of it and that's two points."
That all being said, this surge of points among the defense may lead to that extra confidence needed to perfect their game.
"If you have more confidence with the puck, you're going to have the puck longer and more throughout the game and you're not going to have to play defense," Schultz said. "If me and 'Colesy' keep playing the same way defensively, we're going to keep getting chances. We can't be trying to do too much out there now. We just have to play the same way and keep doing what we're doing. We're not going to be scoring every game."
While scoring can bring confidence, the blueliners agreed that defense always comes as the priority.
"What we've been successful with is playing defense first; playing really solid and playing really smart defense first," Cole said. "Then you use that solid defense and those good reads to transition the puck and give it to our forwards and give our forwards some space. That's what we're out there to do."