Kris Letang Takes Defensive Reigns for Pittsburgh Penguins

When the average hockey fan thinks of the young and improving players on the   Pittsburgh Penguins such names as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Jordan Staal come to mind.

While they are all without doubt talented hockey players, another improving young player who often gets overlooked is 22-year-old defenseman Kris Letang. This 2005 Penguins third-round, draft pick, who is entering his third season, saw his point production drastically improve from 17 in his rookie campaign to 33 last year.

This Montreal native, who doesn’t shy away from playing physically, will be taking on an even bigger role with Pittsburgh this coming season after management failed to re-sign two of their top defensive defenseman: Rob Scuderi and Hall Gill.

“I think we will be expecting more from Alex Goligoski (another young Pens defenseman) and Kris Letang,” General Manager Ray Shero said. “Those are two younger guys that we have a lot of faith in. They’re going to move up [on the depth charts] and get more ice time.”

Shero and the rest of management have to eluded in Letang’s performance on the big stage this past spring, as he resembled an experienced veteran in raking up 13 points and a plus-1 rating. As the playoffs progressed, Letang was seeing more ice time and found himself, on some occasions, killing crucial penalties. Reflecting on helping the Penguins win their third Stanley Cup in franchise, history Letang gave a lot of credit to Gill, who signed this offseason with the Montreal Canadiens, and Scuderi, who signed with the Los Angeles Kings.

“They did a great job,” Letang said. “They were our shutdown defenceman during the whole playoffs. We’re going to build with some other guys and have a good team again.”

Currently, Letang is relaxing and waiting, anxiously, to enjoy his day with the Stanley Cup. He doesn’t mind the short summer, but he knows that pretty soon it will be time to train and prepare for what will be the most important season to date in his budding career. The Penguins had success in re-signing forwards Craig Adams, Bill Guerin, and Rusian Fedotenko.

On the backend, however, despite having an emerging Letang, it will be hard to fill the shoes of Gill, who was a plus-11, and Scuderi, who was an impressive plus-23. Still, watching the emergence of Letang will be an entertaining storyline to follow in Pittsburgh this coming season.