Game 5 sticks with Letang

Defenseman had key breakdowns

Ask any Penguins fan to evaluate Kris Letang’s postseason performance, and the answer likely starts with the defensive breakdowns in the Penguins’ 6-3 Game 5 loss to the Capitals.

Ask Letang, and the answer is the same.

“The only one I have in my mind right now is Game 5,” he said as the Penguins cleaned out their lockers Wednesday. “I made a mistake and it cost us the game. ... I had good moments against Philly, it was an intense series. I had good moments, too, against Washington. But in my mind right now, I just see this game as a problem.”

In that game, Letang seemed to misread the play on Evgeny Kuznetsov’s tying goal early in the third period and lose Jakub Vrana on Vrana’s winner with a few minutes left.

That loss — followed by the season-ending defeat in Game 6 two nights later — provided a sour end to an upand-down comeback season for Letang, who said once again Wednesday that returning from offseason surgery to correct a herniated disk in his neck was tougher than he anticipated.

Letang’s numbers weren’t all that bad. He played 79 games, second most in his career, and his 51 points were 18th among NHL defensemen. He jumped right back into his workhorse role, too, playing 25:20 a game in the regular season and 25:15 in the playoffs.

From his point of view, though, not enough of those minutes were consistently solid.

Coach Mike Sullivan said that he and Letang had a conversation Wednesday morning in which he reaffirmed the Penguins’ faith in Letang as “an elite defenseman,” and that he was confident Letang will improve his consistency with a regular offseason.

“I think when you look at what he’s had to overcome to play this season, it was a big challenge,” Sullivan said. “He went through a major surgery, a major rehab in a short period of time. I had an inclination that it was going to be a difficult process for him to overcome that. Because of that, I think he’s had some ups and downs. He has some stages of the year when he was really good for us. He had other stages when he wasn’t at his best.

“That would be my assessment of where his game was this year. It was up and down. He is a guy who we think is certainly one of the elite defensemen in the league.”