OTTAWA – After nearly half a season under Guy Boucher, these Ottawa Senators believe they’ve developed a puncher’s chance against the heavyweights.

A 4-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins doesn’t just count for the two added points in the standings. A night like this one gives the Ottawa players a little more faith in the defensive structure their head coach has been hammering away at since training camp.

“I think today we executed the gameplan that we had,” said captain Erik Karlsson. “Again, we stuck with it the whole game and we didn’t open it up and try and go for that offence.”

Standing in the remodelled Senators dressing room, these are strange words for an outsider to hear. Karlsson has built a spectacular career by choosing the daring play over the diligent one, driving Ottawa’s offensive game from the blue line to a degree unmatched by any of his peers.

But the mindset has changed in these parts.

With Ottawa now sitting third in the Atlantic Division – one point behind Boston and holding five games in hand – this could very well be the next frontier in hockey’s analytics discussion.

You see, the shot metrics don’t paint a particularly rosy picture of where things are headed for Boucher’s crew. They are generating fewer than 48 per cent of shot attempts at even strength, which puts them in the bottom third of the league.

While they’ve cut down their goals against by nearly half a goal per game, the Senators have made conscious sacrifices in the offensive zone to do it.

On Thursday, they dropped into a passive 1-2-2 formation early against the Penguins and essentially sat back. Mike Hoffman, who averaged 28 goals the past two seasons, was recently moved to a checking line and chased down Sidney Crosby on the backcheck to break up a scoring chance in the second period.

He made a similar play against Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid last weekend.

“When your offensive guys do those things, your team is growing,” said Boucher.

The 45-year-old coach is well-versed in the growing trends around the game but has his own ideas about how they should be applied.

He’s certainly cognizant of the numbers – referring to them as a “new voodoo thing” last month. The Senators gave former video coach Tim Pattyson the title of “hockey operations assistant, analytics and research” in the offseason.

“I support it,” said Boucher. “But I support it to a percentage that is meaningful for what we do. To me, it’s a game of people. It’s individuals and there’s no numbers on that — how you feel that day. For me, the game is about the intangibles.

“The intangibles are individuals, relationships, chemistry, and leadership. That’s where it’s at. The rest – they’re all tools that are supposed to help you in finding those relationships and all that. The minute you’re a slave to stats, to me, you forget about the most important thing: It’s about people. So I use it but I use it in a percentage where it’s part of the equation. It’s a small part of the equation.”

After a 22-14-4 start to the season, there is no question that he has players believing. They see a correlation between their system and success.

The Senators are being instructed to play a style that places a heavy emphasis on the neutral zone. They are trying to disrupt an opponent’s attack, which can be a particularly daunting task when that opponent has Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Phil Kessel playing on separate lines.

But Ottawa managed a strong start Thursday and built a 2-0 lead on power-play goals by Hoffman and Bobby Ryan. They didn’t allow too many dangerous chances even after Pittsburgh cut their lead to 3-1 in the dying seconds of the second period.

Around the league, the Sens are earning a reputation of being a more structured group than they were previously.

“The games that I’ve watched, and when we played against them, I think they’re making a concerted effort at their play away from the puck and being harder to play against,” said Penguins coach Mike Sullivan.

Essentially, they’ve found comfort in playing tight, low-scoring games. They expect to see a lot more of them as the playoff races come into focus down the stretch.

“I think the NHL tightens up in the second half anyways,” said centre Kyle Turris. “It’s always harder to score. Our offence comes from our defensive game. We have to play strong defensively and that allows us to have the puck and try to create something.”

For Boucher, a lot of it comes back to the lessons learned during his first tour of duty as an NHL coach in Tampa.

He remembers the conversations with Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman about Yzerman’s transition from a 50-goal scorer to a third-line checker with the great Detroit teams of the 1990’s. He also recalls having Scotty Bowman tell him about the importance of building a group that can win one-goal games.

And so he is trying to build a team in that image here in Ottawa.

“Once you’ve got your offensive players … becoming really good two-way guys, that’s what you get in Chicago and those [top] teams,” said Boucher. “That’s how you have to start. That’s your first building block.

“I think that’s what [these] guys are doing.”