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A couple news items before we get to the meat of blog today.
Chris Kunitz has signed a 3 year extension with the team that will carry a 3.85M cap hit until the 2016-2017 as reported by the Penguins.
This is a good decision because Kunitz has been a rock for the Penguins in their top 6. He plays great with either Crosby or Malkin and that is not as easy as it sounds. Both star Penguin centers play a different style and with the different styles carry different nuances. Kunitz has thrived with both. As with any contract that carries into a player’s mid thirties it comes with risk of declining production, but that is a risk that you have to take sometimes. Especially for a guy who can do what Kunitz does.
I don’t want to get into the business of trashing other writers so I’ll just say that the Letang/Toronto speculation is nonsense. It isn’t the area where I would pull my Penguin rumors from.
Somebody who can be trusted is Renaud Lavoie, especially when it involves French-Canadian players. He had this to say about the Letang situation:
“If Kris Letang has to be traded by Penguins, he does NOT have a preferred destination.”
UPDATE: Bob McKenzie has reported that the Penguins have offered Kris Letang a substantial offer
Re: the Letang situation in PIT: longer he goes unsigned - PIT has made a substantial offer - more reasonable it is to assume trade possible
Now on to the main part of the blog.
Speculation about what the Penguins are going to do with Kris Letang is about to reach a fever pitch as the draft quickly approaches. Given that Letang is due a healthy raise (6M/year minimum) I wanted to further compare his numbers against other players who will be making around the same kind of money. I didn’t want to compare regular season numbers; I wanted to compare playoff numbers when the stakes are higher.
Below you will find a chart with 13 active players (including Letang). On this chart you will find all the defensemen who are making 6M per season or more. I added Duncan Keith and PK Subban because they are Norris Trophy winners. The chart compiles certain statistics from the past 2 playoff years. At the bottom of the chart you will see the averages of each statistical category.
As you can see Kris Letang’s shorthanded minutes are right in line with the average. His points per game is actually by far the best on the list. However, my main concern is the category in which he is significantly worse than everybody else on the list besides Dion Phaneuf. Kris Letang’s 1.48 goals against per game average is remarkably high and I think is a fair indication of how he has played in the past two postseasons.
Other than Phaneuf and Letang there is only one other defenseman on this chart that has above a 1.0 GA/game average and that is Zdeno Chara. Chara is barely above the 1.0 mark and that is most likely due to the fact that he plays more than 3 minutes each game shorthanded.
It is my belief that the teams in the playoffs who do best are the teams that minimize risk. Sure Letang has by far the best point per game ratio of any defensemen the past two playoffs seasons, but at what cost? The risk/reward payout just hasn’t been there for Letang or the Penguins.
Letang is actually a terrific defender. His skill set allows him to keep up with the fastest players in the league, and his core strength allows him to battle with the toughest players in the league. Without the puck Kris Letang does some great things. The problems come when Letang has the puck on his stick, he trusts his physical skill set too much. It is the egregious turnovers in the wrong areas on the ice that have plagued Letang. It is also his decisions with the puck that make him a below average player on the power play. It is an incredible notion to think that a player with Letang’s dynamic skill set wouldn’t be good on the power play, but it’s true.
If the Penguins are going to throw around big money for a defenseman, it is imperative that they are not on the ice for that many goals against come playoff time. It would be way more beneficial to the Penguins if Letang dropped his ratio below 1.0 even if it meant his points per game also dropping off. Right now Letang’s physical skills are carrying the load for the mental mishaps. His elite skating ability allows him to recover quicker than most any other defenseman would be able to.
It could be possible that Letang becomes a better player as his physical skating slightly regresses and forces him to become a more cerebral player. I’m not sure a team like the Penguins can take a 7M a year risk on something that is no guarantee. If the Penguins truly want to keep Letang they could pay him the 7M per season. The cap will be escalating back up and will most likely be at 75M within 3 years. Ray Shero will be balancing the risk/reward in the coming days, months, weeks, or however long it takes.
That’s all for now, thanks for reading!
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