Pens banking on Letang
After skipping practice on Sunday and opting out of t he morning skate a day later, the obvious question posed to Kris Letang was whether he was healthy enough to play in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.
The followup question was how much he could play.
The Pittsburgh Penguins didn’t just need Letang to be in the lineup — they needed the minute- munching defenceman to be on the ice for roughly half the game.
Heading into the final, Letang led all active players in this year’s playoffs in ice time ( 28: 46), shifts per game (33.8) and total shifts.
In some ways, he has become this year’s Duncan Keith, except Keith also had Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Johnny Oduya to share the ice with in 2015.
Letang has Brian Dumoulin, Olli Maatta and Ben Lovejoy. They are not exactly what you would classify as household names.
Well, that’s not entirely true. If you watched HBO’s 24/ 7 in 2010, you probably remember Lovejoy as the guy who took a puck to the face and then looked like he had been stung by a swarm of bees after his head swelled up during a team flight.
“We know we’re not bigname defencemen,” said Lovejoy.
With the San Jose Sharks, it is the opposite. Brent Burns, who entered t he final ranked third in scoring with 20 points, was recently named to Canada’s World Cup of Hockey roster. MarcEdouard Vlasic won gold at the 2014 Olympics and was one of the first 16 names Canada submitted for its World Cup team. And Paul Martin and Roman Polak are both former Olympians.
These are names you have heard of. Or in Burns’ case, they have beards you could easily recognize.
“He’s an unbelievable D,” Letang, who was not named to Canada’s World Cup roster, said of Burns. “I’m just focusing on my game. My game is different, his game is different. For sure I want to be the best defenceman out there every night, but I have to stay the course and play my game and not try to do too much.”
Most of this series will focus on Burns versus Le tang, simply because both log so many minutes and are at the heart of their respective team’s offence. Burns led defencemen with 27 goals in the regular season and was second with 75 points. Letang was tied for seventh with 16 goals and third among NHL defencemen with 67 points.
Burns was named one of the three finalists for the Norris Trophy. Letang, who was a finalist in 2013, was likely in the top five in voting.
“I think he’s one of the best defencemen in t he league,” Penguins defenceman Justin Schultz said of Letang.
“They’re not easy minutes. He’s against the other team’s best players, he plays on the penalty kill, he does everything out there. He’s a huge piece to this team, for sure.”