VOTE LETANG

An accountant by trade, a new-wave hockey analyst has come up with a statistical model to identify Hall of Famers. Kris Letang qualifies.

This summer, I flew to Montreal to not just witness, but participate in, one of Kris Letang’s legendary workouts for a story that was published on Aug. 19. That painful experience gave me a greater appreciation of what has made Letang, 36, one of the NHL’s best defensemen in his era.

Afterward, Letang brewed us two espressos and then we talked about his rise to stardom and his hopes for this season and beyond. As our long chat wound down, I asked Letang if he felt he was worthy of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“If I end up in the Hall of Fame or I don’t, it doesn’t matter. I won what I won, and this is what makes me proud. It’s not like I’m going to wear a Hall of Fame coat to dinner,” he joked. “If people appreciate what I did throughout my career and they want to give it to me, fine. If they don’t, ... it’s out of my control.”

The fact Letang spent five minutes telling me he didn’t care suggested to me that maybe he does. And why shouldn’t he? This is his legacy here.

But I do understand why Letang might guard himself against the expectation that he should one day get the call to the Hall. He has been overlooked relative to his NHL peers and is underappreciated even by some Pittsburgh fans.

The reality is, though, Letang might already have a Hall of Fame resume.

An accountant turned analyst named Paul Pidutti, whose story we get to elsewhere on the page, created a statistical model that factors in the accomplishments of existing Hall of Famers to determine which players deserve to join them in the Hall. Pidutti uses a scoring system to stack those players into tiers.

His “Inner Circle” tier consists of roughly 40 of the greatest players ever, including Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby. Then there is the “Qualified” tier, followed by “Borderline” and then the “Hall of Fame Standard,” which reflects all the players who are in, even if they maybe weren’t as deserving as others.

Letang has already ascended into the “Qualified” tier. Which, in the words of Pidutti, means he “easily” clears the bar for enshrinement.

No, Letang has never won a Norris Trophy. But Pidutti’s “High Noon” metric, which aims to capture where a player ranked among his active peers over a three-year span, said he was the NHL’s best defenseman from 2013 to 2016.

Pidutti also pointed to Letang’s longevity, despite some scary health problems that cut into his prime. In the eight years in which Letang was aged 24 to 31, only one blue-liner produced at a higher rate. Some guy named Erik Karlsson.

“The thing that everyone misses with Letang’s case is this,” Pidutti said. “By having so many seasons in his [prime] shortened by injury, he quietly played near a Norris level annually but never had the in-year counting stats to show it.”

Pidutti argued that if you adjust his point totals to reflect the eras Letang has played in, it is even more impressive that he is closing in on 700 points.

Pidutti said that if you also consider his “average defensive play,” his three Stanley Cups, his All-Star appearances and eight top-10 finishes in Norris voting, he meets the statistical standard while also having an inspirational narrative.

Letang winning the Masterton Trophy doesn’t factor into the model. But it will likely resonate with the Hall selection committee.

Add all it up and Letang is already one of the 30 best defensemen in NHL history, per Pidutti’s model. And Letang still hopes to play five more seasons.

“His brilliance has simply been masked by a lack of full, signature seasons,” Pidutti said. “He doesn’t need them, though. He was great nearly every year.”

Back in August, at Adrenaline Performance Center in Montreal, I pulled out my iPhone to show Letang the player card Pidutti made for him, the one suggesting he was a Hall of Fame lock. Letang glanced at it then politely waved it away.

“Individual honors are cool,” Letang told me. He added he “obviously” wishes he could “win a Norris or something like that.” But, earnestly, he insisted the main thing he cares about is “being part of a core” that won four Cups.

He mentioned the Montreal Canadiens, New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers of decades past and noted that no team has done it in the salary cap era.

He would be honored to one day get into the Hall. But it would be more meaningful to him to be “part of a group that did something that people remember.”

“Maybe I’ve been on Sid’s team for so long and he doesn’t give a [bleep] about those things?” Letang said. “At the end of the day, he just wants to win Cups.”