Kovacevic: A pairing like no other

CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- It's completely uncool in the hockey culture to leave the rink right after the coaches blow the whistle on a practice, so the timing of how and when certain players exit can be plenty telling.

It was Monday morning inside the still-glistening glass of one of the Lemieux Sports Complex rinks, and Mike Johnston had just put the Penguins' primary group through their paces for nearly 90 minutes. Most looked spent. The rest looked exhausted. But sure enough, no one came close to following Johnston and staff when they exited for the locker room. They kept skating and shooting at half-speed, then skating and shooting some more at lesser speeds, then pretty much just played around.

Finally, about five minutes later, a couple of vets broke the barrier.

Soon, it was a couple of minor-league vets. Hey, they're old, too.



Next came the superstars. They have to outlast the vets to set the example that they're not above everyone else, but not so much that it's silly.

After that were the rookies. They don't want to show up the established players because this whole post-practice hierarchy thing is out of their league. Better to just clear out.

Once all that settled, there were two.

One of those two is, as ever, Kris Letang, the imperial monarch of rink rats. Always the first on, always the last off, always fixated -- no, obsessed -- with perfecting every aspect of his already elite game.

"For me," Letang would tell me later, "it's a joy every time I'm on the ice."

Small wonder. His past year and change has seen him besieged by a stroke, the discovery of a birth defect in his heart and a continuing onslaught of concussions.

The other of those two is Olli Maatta, Letang's new partner. And now, his pupil, judging from their extra 25 minutes on the ice in which Letang did almost all of the talking.

"It's an honor to play with a great player like that," Maatta would say. "I feel like we can help each other a lot, and I want to learn everything."

Even if it means all that extra work?

"Are you kidding?" he came back at that question. "After everything that just happened, there's nowhere I'd rather be than out on that ice."

No doubt. His past year and change has seen him besieged by the removal of a cancerous thyroid tumor, followed mercilessly by shoulder surgery -- no, a second surgery on the same shoulder -- that cut off his 2014-15 season at 20 games.

Truly, the Penguins' new top defense pairing will be a pairing like no other.