With the offense yet to have the consistent impact it had in the 2017 championship season, Georgia’s defense is showing it can lead the Swarm up in the NLL East standings.

A 12-7 victory in Toronto on Saturday night atoned for an 11-10 home loss to Colorado on Friday and lifted the Swarm into a fourth-place tie with Rochester that will be broken this Saturday when the two teams go at it in Rochester. The win was the result of outstanding 44-save goaltending by Mike Poulin, a strong defense and superb penalty killing. Defensemen Connor Sellars, Alex Crepinsek and Leo Stouros were all over top Rock shooter Adam Jones, who couldn’t buy a goal. And the Rock was 0-for-6 on power plays.

“[Friday] was very disappointing,” Poulin said. “I take the brunt of that loss on myself, the way things ended. I made it a goal to have a strong finish [Saturday].”

Toronto jumped to a 3-1 lead and was up 5-3 in the second quarter when the Swarm went on a six-goal run that included a stretch of 32 minutes, 30 seconds that ran into the fourth quarter without a Toronto goal. The Rock failed to score during a two-man advantage then failed again during a major penalty to Jordan Hall, who was ejected late in the third quarter for high-sticking Damon Edwards.

“That was big, especially with us already having a penalty,” Poulin said. “It gave them an opportunity to score three, so for us to hold them to zero that was the turning point. We didn’t have the start we wanted, again, but when all was said and done for us to come in here after a loss like [Friday] says a lot about the character in this room.”

Going so long without allowing a goal was unique.

“There’s a lot of talent on that Rock squad,” Poulin said. “I’m sure it’s been a long, long time since they’ve gone more than a quarter without a goal. Honestly, I didn’t even notice the score until we got to 10-6 and that dagger [of a penalty kill] put things out of reach for them. It felt good then to realize what we were able to accomplish as a defense.

“We’re rollin’. We stumbled [in the season’s first half] but we picked ourselves back up. We know how good it feels to hoist that trophy at the end of the year and we’re going to go for it again.”

Lyle Thompson and scored three goals and Miles Thompson got two as the brothers displayed the grit that was so influential last season. But it was Poulin and the defense that won this game.

“Most of us have played together now for a few years,” Crepinsek said. “It’s taken us a few games to hit our stride on the D-end but we’re feeling pretty good back there right now. When you’ve got Poulin between the pipes playing like he did ... it’s really awesome to see him have a huge game.”

The Swarm usually win when they play in Toronto. A lot of the players are from southern Ontario so love playing in Air Canada Centre.

“Everybody gets a little fired up because we’ve got family and friends watching,” Crepinsek said. “We don’t get that experience anywhere else around the league. It’s cool.”

With seven games remaining, Georgia is only one game out of first place in the tight NLL East.

Coralling Jones was the task handed Sellars, Crepinsek and Stouros.

“You’ve got to play hard against him because he’s such a good player,” said Sellars, who has emerged as a top defenseman in only his second pro season. “We had the best game of the year so far on defense. I feel like I’m coming along well. Last year was a good experience. This year is another stepping stone. I’m trying to be more of a leader now and grow my game as much as possible.”

Head coach Ed Comeau was pleased.

“We got in a lot of shooting lanes and played aggressive,” he said. “That’s going to be the key to our success.’’

He expected Poulin to rebound, as he habitually does, after Colorado’s Stephen Keogh bounced a long shot off his leg and in for the winning Mammoth goal with five seconds left Friday.

“Mike would be the first one to say that was a shot he’d like to have back,” Comeau said. “He was disappointed because we thought we played well enough to get a win Friday. We kind of let it slip away. He was outstanding [Saturday]. When you hold a team with that many power plays and that many weapons to no power-play goals, that’s a pretty good night.”

“Our short-man play really came together,” said captain Jordan McIntosh. “Holding them to zero goals was a huge momentum boost. Mike really played well. We played well defensively [Friday], too. It was a tough one on Mike and he came back with a vengeance.”

There has been a marked improvement in overall Swarm play since Jordan Hall and Joel White returned to the lineup after missing the schedule’s first half due to weekday work commitments.

“It’s an unbelievable group of guys so it’s an honor having them allow me to come back after some work conflicts,” White said. “I’m thankful to be back and I’m just trying to knock the rust off to this point.”

John Ranagan has been another important defenseman on the back end.

“We had a tough loss [Friday] and kind of knew that our backs were against the wall here and we really needed to sharpen up, especially in the defensive end,” he said after the win in Toronto. “It starts with Mike Poulin. He played phenomenally. Defensively, we talked about making sure we were getting in the shooting lanes because Toronto has a lot of great shooters. We did a good job of blocking a lot of shots. The biggest thing was picking up loose balls after shots. We’ve been struggling with that, allowing offenses to have multiple possessions. We picked it up [Saturday] and got the ball up to our offense. Everything came together and it showed in the score at the end of the game.”

He lauded the work on Jones of Crepinsek, Stouros and Sellars.

“Connor Sellars has been playing phenomenal all year,” he added.

Ethan O’Connor was still feeling the effects long after the game of being slammed to the floor by Brock Sorensen with 17 seconds left.

“This was a good bounce-back game for our team,” he said. “We had a tough start to the season but we can definitely build off this win. We’re confident in our group. That’s something we always have, a swagger. We’ll use that the rest of the way.”

“We were fortunate to have a quick turnaround, which is really nice as an athlete,” Bryan Cole said. “You don’t want to soak in the bad. It sucks when you have to wait a week after a loss to play again. To play the next night is really nice and even better when you get a win.”

“I don’t think we’d strung together 60 minutes like that this season,” said Chad Tutton. “It was a breath of fresh air to see that and to be a part of it. We played well up and down the floor — offense, defense, Poulin was lights out. That was just an all-around great game for us. We’re overdue to get movin’.”

And the defense is leading the way.

“They do all the little things right,” said leading Swarm scorer Shayne Jackson, who scored three goals. “They don’t get enough credit. They played unbelievable. They were blocking shots. They were all over the floor making smart decisions. Pouly made some huge saves. Our offense has been struggling but these last couple of weeks the defense has really been playing unbelievable.”