PITTSBURGH — The high-scoring Pittsburgh Penguins are conjuring up memories of some of the franchise's finest teams.

Although coach Michael Therrien has a defense-first reputation, Pittsburgh has ascended to the upper reaches of the top offensive teams in the league.

The high-flying Penguins teams of the 1990s, featuring Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and company, regularly were at or near the top of the league's offensive statistical categories. This season, the Penguins are not only poised to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since Lemieux and Jagr last skated together in 2001, they're also scoring goals with a frequency not seen since the two shared the same line.

"When you're scoring four or five goals a game, you have a good chance of winning games," forward Erik Christensen said.

The Penguins are second in the league in goals per game behind only Buffalo. To put the 186 goals Pittsburgh has scored through barely more than two-thirds of a season into perspective, consider that the Penguins averaged 192 goals in the three years after Jagr was traded.