PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Penguins spent the offseason talking about the need to build a new identity, one predicated less on flash and more on fundamentals. The early returns are promising, no matter who happens to be on the bench on a given night.

Kris Letang scored twice in the third period, including a beautiful flip from in close after dangling past a pair of sprawled Dallas Stars, to lead the undermanned Penguins to a 4-2 victory on Friday that extended their winning streak to five. Patric Hornqvist and Jared McCann also scored for Pittsburgh and Matt Murray stopped 22 shots as the Penguins stayed hot even without a handful of forwards, including star center Evgeni Malkin.

Pittsburgh has done it by relying on solid goaltending and avoiding the kind of sloppy mistakes that hurt last season’s team at times, most notably during a four-game sweep at the hands of the New York Islanders in the opening round of the playoffs. The absence of Malkin, Alex Galchenyuk, Bryan Rust and Nick Bjugstad has limited the team’s offensive firepower. Yet the Penguins have made up for it by playing responsibly.

“This is the identity that we envisioned when we put this group of players together,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “It’s a north-south game. It’s a speed game. It’s puck support in all three zones and it’s attention to detail. ... Regardless of who is in the lineup, if we play this way, we feel like we can play with anyone.”

Matt Murray made 22 saves behind a defense that kept the struggling Stars in check for long stretches. A pair of point-blank stops on Seguin in the second period kept Pittsburgh within a goal and when the Penguins got rolling late, the Stars simply couldn’t keep up.

Roope Hintz scored his fifth goal for Dallas, and John Klingberg’s first of the season — a shot through a screen — beat Murray with 7:59 remaining to get Dallas within one, but the Stars dropped to 1-7-1, with six of the losses coming by two goals or less. Anton Khudobin stopped 29 shots but was once again undone by a lack of support.

“It is better, but at the same time, I think we’re not angry enough,” Khudobin said. “That’s what I think. I think we played the first two periods really good. We outhit them. Maybe we didn’t outshoot them, but we outhit them. Played pretty good hockey. Something went wrong. That second goal, my goal, definitely. What else can you say? We just got another L.”