EDMONTON, Alberta -- There were times, a mere few months back, when Kris Letang wanted more than ever in his life to get away from the rink. To just go home.
Couldn't believe my ears when it came out, but I heard it.
This was late Tuesday night way up here in the NHL's northernmost outpost and, for full context, so much else that had just transpired to capture the attention of not only this capacity crowd but, really, the whole hockey world: Sidney Crosby had just upstaged Connor McDavid. And he did so in overtime, with nothing less than one of the most mind-blowing goals of a living legend's career:
It's beautiful stuff.
But once that buzz passes, assuming it does, try to get a grip on this: The best player in this game, a 6-5 victory for the Penguins over the Oilers, wasn't Crosby or McDavid. Nor was it Patric Hornqvist or Jamie Oleksiak, each of whom matched Crosby's two-goal output.
Nope. It was the same guy it's been pretty much every one of these seven games to date.
"He's playing at a level that I don't think he's done consistently before. Not like this," Sergei Gonchar was telling me afterward. And he was speaking, of course, of Letang. "I think we've seen his talent, obviously, through the years. He's always had the natural abilities with the best defensemen in the league, right there in the top. But because of injuries or whatever, he wasn't at that level consistently. Now ..."
Bit of a pause.
"Now, when you look at him ... it's every game, every shift. He's playing his best hockey. He's finally put it all together. I know it's early in the season, but it's been like this from the first day he came to the rink for training camp. I could see his focus, his attention to details, his attention to defense. And now ..."
Yeah. Now.
Now, Letang is finding Crosby for Globetrotter goals like this:
And he's parting an Orange Sea of Oilers to create a breakaway for himself at one end in overtime, while pokechecking McDavid at the other:
That pokecheck's from behind. Against the world's fastest skater. While gaining clear -- no, casual -- possession of the puck.
Stay with the uncut clip. It's worth it.
Absorb these numbers, too: Letang's assist up there on Crosby's first-period power-play redirect gave him four goals and five assists through the seven games, in addition to a team-high 26:32 of average ice time, a team-high 23 shots and, delving into advanced analytics, a team-high 61.64 High-Danger Scoring Chances percentage. What the latter weighs, simply, is how often he's been on the ice when the Penguins generate an outstanding chance (45 times) and how often he's been on the ice for one against (28).
This could sound silly a month into the season, but he's performing at a Norris Trophy level.
"He's been outstanding," Crosby told me after this game.
"He's been unbelievable," Matt Murray essentially echoed.
"Unbelievable," Patric Hornqvist actually did echo.
So, how does someone that dynamic, that durable through ailments and illnesses of all sorts, that driven to excel that at age 31 he's still almost always the last to leave any given rink, ever wish to be away from it?
Yeah, let's swing back to that.
I challenged Letang after this latest gem to dig deep, to give me something good to explain how a crisis in confidence through most of 2017-18 has transformed to this dramatic degree. And within that, I further challenged him to go beyond reiterating his oft-stated recovery from neck surgery. Because sorry, this has to be about more than that.
"Honestly, I started the year on a clean slate," Letang began. "That did have a lot to do with my surgery because it was one year behind me. I felt good about my body. I was fit. I was able to have a normal summer getting prepared."
OK, heard that before. And?
"Well ... people remember things from last year. They didn't really think, 'Oh, he just had surgery,' or 'Oh, he didn't have training.' And they didn't talk about how I still wanted to get out there and play, how I still wanted to be there for my team. And I did. That's why I went out there. ... But it kept backfiring on me."
By people, he means people like me and maybe like you. We were skeptical, even cynical. Spoke about trading him. Dumping his salary.
And it evidently stung like hell.
Oh, he wouldn't divulge that, at least not publicly. But I'd heard it. And I'd hoped, in all candor, that he'd share it in this moment the way that he did.
He shared something else, too.
"Knowing I could go home, and everything was normal. It was everyone who means the most to me. I'd go home, and ... and ..."
And there was a hug or three to be had?
"Yeah, exactly."
I'm not going to go too much further. To repeat, it's been seven games. But to know Letang, as I've been blessed for several years now, is to know that he's a perfectionist to a fault. That's why, on that special night in San Jose three summers ago, when he was the star of stars in Game 6, he still grumbled when I asked if it had been the game of his life. That's why, when he makes any mistake, he downplays or dismisses it. It's not to deny it, as so many athletes do, but because he's always seeking that 'clean slate' he mentioned. It's just how he works best.
Put another way, he's comfortable being great. He's a car crash when he's not.
That make sense?
Good, because I've got one more connection to make with San Jose. The morning of that Game 6, Mike Sullivan stressed two words to Letang: "Just defend." The thought wasn't new. He'd been hearing something similar from coaches and teammates through his tenure. Brooks Orpik once told me Letang's game "builds from the back out," meaning that, if he takes care of that, everything else takes flight on its own.
His current Sarge sells the same drill.
"He's more selective. He's reading the game better," Gonchar told me. "If you look at him over the years, maybe he'd run around a little bit. Now he takes his chances at just the right time. I think that's why you're seeing him playing an almost perfect game."
Note: That's almost perfect. Keep it quiet.