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Ignore the noise surrounding Kris Letang |
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The holiday break is officially over. The team is back in action tonight against the Columbus Blue Jackets. In case you forgot John Tortorella doesn't like the Penguins. Jealousy is a stinky cologne
Pittsburgh escaped their last contest with the Blue Jackets with a 3-2 shootout win. The win was nice, but it only kept the status quo in the standings because nearly every other Metropolitan team earned a point that night. For the Penguins to solidify their chances at the playoffs their best path will be getting regulation wins within the division. Not an easy task when you are missing one of your better players.
Kris Letang is listed as day to day with a lower body injury. Make no mistake, he is by far and away the Penguins best defenseman. The criticism about his play has been largely overdone. Yes, he has made some really bad turnovers. These turnovers have led to goals against. He's still great at driving play towards the other end of the ice. The mistakes are visceral and easy to remember. The things he does well he makes look easy and are as easily forgotten.
"But his +/-"
That's an easy way to pick out somebody who you don't need to get your analysis from.
On-ice save percentage: 87.99%
On-ice shooting percentage: 3.92%
There's your explanation for the stat that has no predictive or meaningful value.
Letang is a 53.3% possession player, which is low for him, but good by mostly anybody else's standards. The one legit criticism of Letang this year should be his even-strength point production. It has been very bad. Even with that terrible 5v5 production he is still 7th overall in the league in points among defensemen. I've given Letang grief about how he runs the power play in the past, but only Shayne Ghostisbehere (16) has more power play points than Letang (14) this year. That comes with him losing time to Justin Schultz on the #1 unit. Sidney Crosby is terrible at even-strength offensive production this year as well. I don't believe that Sid or Letang have forgotten or lost their ability to do so and I'm not going to overreact when we have huge samples to draw from.
This brings me to the silly discussions about a potential Kris Letang trade. There's no logical basis for it. His value to the team far outweighs his market value, which is probably at an all-time low. The fact the Penguins won the Stanley Cup last year without Letang should not play into this either. The Penguins won because they were incredibly lucky. They were routinely outplayed and relied on high end goaltending. That isn't/wasn't a model that should be followed. It doesn't take away the joy of winning, but when you are making roster moves to sustain success I wouldn't use any of that run as an example on how to achieve it. Last postseason and this regular season is proof enough that riding the PDO wave is like managing a drug addiction. The highs are high, the lows are low. The best course of action is to not rely on those highs or low and have a quality process (possession). To think that Letang's absence in the lineup wasn't missed is to miss the big picture on why the Penguins made their way through to mid-June.
What does a Kris Letang trade even look like? What does it have to look like to make sense for the Penguins? Who is going to pay it? It's something we won't have to worry about. Why? It's because the guy on Hockey Night in Canada who started this whirlwind of rumors is the same guy who said Evgeni Malkin was playing his last playoff series as a Penguin before they won their 2016 Stanley Cup. If that's the genesis of the rumor I'm good letting others get worked up about it.
Kris Letang is one of the more skilled players at the defense position in the league. While he may never reach his career highs in possession or even-strength production again he's still going to be better than most at his position and comes in with a very reasonable cap hit considering the ever-changing market. Regression is a hell of a thing and it will take its course, just like it always does.
Thanks for reading!
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