Imagine this: It's the spring of 2015. The Penguins were just bounced out of their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Rangers. Kris Letang didn't play at all during the series due to a concussion, his third in fewer than four seasons, and suffered a stroke the year prior.
And a time-traveler just told you that 35-year-old Letang is due for a raise in addition to a multi-year contract during the 2022 offseason.
At the time, that notion would have sounded like utter nonsense, but Letang has aged gracefully, especially in relation to other high-end defensemen around the league.
He's also had a strikingly clean bill of health dating back to the beginning of the 2019-20 season, as he has missed only 13 games since.
The Penguins have entered the biggest offseason in franchise history, one that will shape the final chapters of the Sidney Crosby era.
While Bryan Rust signing a six-year contract to stay with the Penguins was the first domino to fall, Letang remains the Penguins' most important piece to be re-signed.
Letang is coming off a season in which he produced career-highs in assists (58) and points (68). Only the Predators' Roman Josi picked up more primary assists than the 34 Letang logged among all NHL defensemen. His 2.03 points per hour led Penguins defensemen and ranked 11th across the league.
Courtesy of JFresh Hockey, here's a snapshot of Letang's impacts over the past three seasons. (You can read an explainer on the values here.)
JFresh Hockey
Letang's wins above replacement (WAR) is hurt by his diminishing defensive play and tendency to take more penalties than he draws, but his offensive prowess is still about as strong as you could hope for, even if it's not what it was a decade ago.
Perhaps the largest factor to Letang's rough defensive impacts is his rover-esque coverage. His skating remains elite, but it's evident he has lost a step speed-wise. That can get him into trouble when he gets a bit overzealous in attempting to use his feet to kill plays:
Letang does kill plenty of plays with his feet and aggressiveness, but sometimes he'd be better served letting rather routine plays, like the one above, develop instead of abandoning certain areas of the ice.
His aggressiveness is best utilized when he has adequate defensive support from his teammates. That allows him to have more conviction in his decisions while providing a safety valve in case things go south:
It's not a rarity for Letang to stymie rushes in that fashion, but it is worth noting that the opposition had a 67.8% success rate at crossing the offensive blue line with possession when targeting Letang on the entry at five-on-five this past season, the worst mark among Penguins defensemen, according to the manual tracking of AllThreeZones.
With his biggest weakness in mind, let's shift focus to the areas where the Penguins feel his impact the most, starting with transitioning the puck up ice.
3.16. That's the number of times Letang botched a defensive zone retrieval and failed to exit per hour at five-on-five this past season. No Penguins defenseman had fewer mishaps, a testament to the poise Letang tends to play with under pressure. It's not always pretty, and sometimes he has to take a hit to make it happen, but Letang excels at slipping unconventional passes right around forecheckers and to his outlets.
When that isn't an option, Letang uses his feet to get the puck out of harm's way before hitting an outlet with a pass, or he skates the puck all the way out of the zone himself:
Even though Letang doesn't have the largest frame, he's become adept at shielding the puck along the wall. In the clip above, Letang smartly kept his forward momentum going to receive the puck in stride while immediately creating separation between the puck and oncoming pressure with his body. His upper-body rotated back to see the puck, but the direction of his skates never altered their course until he received the pass.
The ability to separate movement between your upper-body and lower-body is what makes some of the game's best players so dynamic. Nikita Kucherov might be the best example of it. Hockey is all about making reads based on what your opponent is telling you. When you can indicate one thing with your lower-body, but do something entirely different with some rotation in your upper-body, you become dangerous.
There are multiple instances of Letang completing stretch passes by doing so every game:
Letang didn't even pick up an assist on that play. Without him threatening toward the middle or slinging a dime of a two-line pass off the boards, the Penguins don't score there.
As much as Mike Matheson loves to skate the puck end-to-end, he doesn't enter the offensive zone with possession at five-on-five more frequently than Letang, who did so 7.3 times per hour. Outside of those two and John Marino, who hasn't been able to translate his strong transition numbers into actual offensive results, the Penguins don't have much else by way of defensemen that can enter the zone with the puck on their stick consistently.
It doesn't happen with the same regularity it did when he was 25, but Letang's eagerness to activate and jump into the open ice in front of him is just another component of his strong offensive impacts. He might not be the most dangerous player on the rush. That's OK, because even if he doesn't convert, the initial chance is typically enough to break down the defense for another chance or two:
There's also the occasional Letang play that makes you shake your head in disbelief of how easy he made it look:
Most of this is probably what you expected. Still excellent offensively, not all that great defensively.
For me, it boils down to this: If the Penguins were to let Letang walk, who realistically replaces him?
Nobody.
Not anyone in-house.
Not anyone on the open market.
Do you want Marino jumping into that role and playing nearly 26 minutes a night at all-situations? If you do, you're probably related to him. That's no disrespect to him, either. He's a solid defenseman that has room for improvement in several key areas. After all, he was acquired for a late-round draft pick. The odds of him ever taking over for Letang were always astronomical.
Here are the top right-handed defensemen that are pending unrestricted free agents:
• John Klingberg
• P.K. Subban
• Josh Manson
• Colin Miller
Not a single one of those players, not even Klingberg, are better on their best day than Letang on an average day. Klingberg does have offensive upside, but has similar defensive deficiencies as Letang and figures to command only a million or two fewer dollars per year than Letang. Are the minimal savings worth the downgrade? Absolutely not.
We haven't even touched on the fact that Letang is a premier power play quarterback (spare me the moans about the turnovers at the blue line, those come with the territory of attempting to create dangerous chances) or that he's quite effective on the penalty kill despite poor impacts defensively at even-strength. There isn't a single viable candidate to fill his skates.
Remember that insane contract Seth Jones signed not too long ago? Sure you do. Would you take Jones over Letang for just next season? No chance. Now ask yourself how in the world the Penguins find a sensible replacement.
Letang was open about wanting to stay in Pittsburgh (noting that he thinks he could play four or five more years) and Ron Hextall made it clear that he hopes to re-sign Letang, along with Evgeni Malkin, and have them finish their careers where they started.
Evolving Hockey is projecting a three-year deal with an AAV of $8.918 million for Letang if he were to re-sign with the Penguins before the official start of free agency on July 13. Hextall should take that deal and run. Not necessarily because Letang will quite live up to that cap hit -- especially after next season -- but because it will literally cripple the Penguins if he doesn't.
If they want to tack on a fourth year to potentially knock down the AAV, by all means, do it. The way I see it, the Penguins really only have next season as another chance to win a Stanley Cup with this core of players. Is it really going to matter if Letang is overpaid in three seasons? I'm not saying to up and forget about the future entirely, but making some choices you otherwise wouldn't to give your core one last shot seems more than worth it.
No matter how you cut it, the Penguins have a better chance at competing for a Stanley Cup next season with Letang on the roster than without him. That's all that matters.
This was the first of a two-part series analyzing the impacts of Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin and whether or not they should be re-signed.
