Before this playoff series started, many people suggested that Kris Letang was going to be the key factor in the Penguins play-off run. Most of the articles I read proselytized Letang’s offense as the marker to watch. At the time, I partially agreed with them, I agreed and still agree that Letang is the key. Where I differ is in my belief as to what part of Letang’s game is the key. It will not be Letang’s offense that will determine the outcome of the Flyer series or the Penguins’ playoff fortunes but his defense and not his defensive strengths but his defensive liabilities that will be the key factor.
Many times I have heard media talking heads compare Letang to the old Rover position in hockey back in the late 19th century. That peculiar position disappeared from the forerunner to the NHL, the National Hockey Association (NHA) in 1910, from, and the NHL in 1917. The position survived a few more years in the Pacific Coast Hockey league (PCHL) and the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL) and even was used during the 1920 Winter Olympics. However, by 1923 all leagues decided that the extra player per team on the ice crowded the ice and slowed the play down, so the position was eliminated.
Even when the position existed, there were still 2-Defensemen on the ice, responsible for playing defense. Unfortunately, when Letang goes off acting like the old time Rover, he leaves his defensive partner as the only defenseman and thereby leaves the Goalie hanging out on a limb. Wednesday night in Philadelphia he played a fairly strong, defensively responsible game and the Penguins won; not only won but had a shut out.
Unfortunately, that Kris Letang didn’t show up last night. The Kris Letang that showed up last night look much more like a 6 year old learning how to play soccer, following the puck rather than playing his position. The Letang that showed up last night roved far and wide across the ice, often to the detriment of the team.
Watching the Flyers’ first goal in real time and on replay (many times now), I cringedand still cringe watching Letang go behind the net to join Brian Dumoulin and Jake Guentzel to try and triple team a Flyer, only to get in the way of the Penguins already there and leave Claude Giroux wide open at the bottom of the face-off circle. No goalie, ever born, can react fast enough to stop a one time slap shot from the bottom of the face-off circle.
As frustrating as watching the Flyers’ first goal was, watching Valterri Filpula get in behind Letang to not only get to the Jori Lehtera rebound and get one extra shot off, but a third crack at the puck to knock it in behind, Matt Murray was sheer torture. Our own Phil Krundle found a great picture of Letang and Dumoulin boxing out Flyers’ defensemen in game 4 to add to some of my post after that game. I am left wondering how they could play such positional solid one game and then do a 180 the next game.
Letang may not have really been the main culprit on the Flyers’ 3rd goal but he was on the ice for that one too. The breakout looked more like the Keystone Kops rather than an NHL team. Granted, the team has looked really solid with its breakouts so far this post season and this breakout was more of an anomaly. However, looking at that 3rd goal, even though it didn’t matter, the puck deflected off of Dumounlin, Scott Laughton was in behind the Penguins’ Defense and if you watch the replay, Letang wanders into the picture off of the left wing wall. Even if Dumoulin hadn’t deflected the puck past Murray, Letang would never have been able to prevent Laughton from getting at least 1 if not 2 rebound cracks.
Finally, on the Flyers, 4th, and empty net goal, Letang nonchalantly skated the puck to the Penguins’ blue-line, no speed, no urgency, giving the Flyers time to set up their wall. It really didn’t surprise me any when the Flyers stepped up, hit him, and forced him to cough up the puck. To cap off the night of futility, Letang then watched Matt Read jump all over the puck and rip it into the empty net.
It is doubtful that Letang will turn in 2 more flat tire performances so I am not yet panic stricken. I still 3elieve.
Odds and Sods
Unfortunately, our Baby Penguins also blew a tire too. They lost 3 – 2 in OT to Charlotte. On the plus side, Andrey Pedan scored the Baby Penguins’ first goal on the power play to give them the lead. Ryan Haggerty and Lukas Bengtsson had the assists. Daniel Sprong extended the lead with his first AHL playoff goal, with the help of Garrett Wilson and Jean-Sebastien Dea. Unfortunately Charlotte rattled off 3 straight goals and the Baby Penguins lost. Former Penguin Greg McKegg got on the score sheet for Charlotte while the player the Penguins traded McKegg for, Josh Jooris was a -2 in the game.
As goes Hunwick, so go the Penguins — a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Gotta love this line:
GP G A P +/- PIM PPG PPP SHG SHP GWG OTG S S%
2017-2018 Playoffs 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0 0
Hey Shoham,
Agreed a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Hunwick hasn’t played yet and therefore can;t be blamed for any of the Penguins defensive lapses but the chances the Penguins D-men not missing games, opening up a whole that Sullivan may feel obliged to fill with Hunwik get smaller and smaller the deeper the Penguins go. It would seem Vegas does feel the Pens have at least a slight advantage over Was and CBJ so I still fear Hunwick may get on the ice.
What scares me is my own thoughts, I am now starting to wonder if Hunwick is less of a liability than Letang.
To quote an old TV Show – “Soap” the answers to this and other questions tune in….”; only about 2 months before the crowning of the 2017-2018 Cup and we will know whether Penguins can go the distance without Hunwick and/or if either of them is too great a liability and if so which one.
Hi.
Yes . Letang minutes should be reduced to 17-20 minutes.
He shouldn’t start games either. I rather see rotate of Dumoulin-Shultz or Määttä-Shultz to start games.
You watch him closely you see the reasons why he shouldn’t play 20+ minutes it’s from start to finish in games no matter how many points he gets.
From drop of the puck he’s bad and often give pucks to opponents in own zone where Sid ‘s line or Geno’s Line is hemmed up playing more defense than they should. Exhaustion has nothing to do with it . He’s bad from start to finish.
Age, Injuries and Overused is catching up with him . He’s more worser .
Numbers can lie and eye test can speak for itself 100% of time with Letang. Letang isn’t leader nor a guy you can reliable in key situations to win games. IMO. I know some will disagree with me. It is what it is . I see what I see with Letang.
Before that moment he gotten call with selfish penalty. Letang could’ve had three more penalties in yesterday’s game that wasn’t call. It could have hurt his team.
Sully should reduced him in minutes and key situations if he wants to go far in the playoffs to 3peat. They can do it but Letang happens to be held accountable and shelter for the betterment of this team.
He wasn’t good this series. He was good in the first game(with two penalties) that’s it. He’s a selfish guy. I respect his ok offensive instincts.
His athleticism and reckless hockey made him great to others .I don’t respect as overall elite defenseman in this league. He’s a good player because the success/hard work of Geno and Sid. I respect defenseman who evolved themselves individually(their game) for the betterment of their team through there injuries. Letang hasn’t never done that. He’s has been the same for years.
You can be offensive defenseman and still work hard to defend for you team. He doesn’t do that and leave Dumoulin out to dry. Often near Dumoulin while he’s defending his man. Dumoulin tries his beest to do his job and cover for Letang. He can’t keep doing it for Letang.
I feel like Ray Shero made a big mistake of signing him instead of trading him. I disliked Nikasen but I would have kept him before Letang. IDk.
He can’t reads plays, he can’t make passes, doesn’t defend properly, he doesn’t support his partner in situations to get puck away from opponents, he has no defensive acumen, he often standing around, throw the puck anywhere, bad on the top pp,bad turnovers,leads Murray out to dust, lazy , give up on plays, get beats all the time and he’s just careless etc…
I prefer and trust Dumoulin, Määttä and Shultz to get more minutes in games. They are capable of . Dumoulin, Määttä and Shultz was great in series despite still some trouble on them continuing to use east/ west design with the puck.
I want the Penguins to succeed again to hoist the cup because I know how much it means to Geno and Sid really the whole organization.
I keep saying it and beating a dead horse at this point with Letang.
I hope he can do better by being hell accountable and shelter in minutes.
At the end of the day I still want Rutherford to trade him this summer . Give thanks to him And move on from him.
Hey Dee,
You know I am not going to argue with you. Like you I respect Letang’s offensive skills and I may take it a little farther and say I respect how much he has given to the team over the years, but he is very limited and hurting the team fairly often right now.
You make an incredible point that I must confess I hadn’t gone so far in considering. Most Defensemen evolve over the course of their careers, particularly offensive Defensemen. Offensive Defensemen usually start maturing into a more rounded Defensemen by the time they hit about 28 and often become good defensive defensemen (not really great but good) by the time the enter into their 30s. In Letang’s case, there hasn;t been that much of an evolution from when he was kid.
In his “hey-day” Paul Martin covered up most of his glaring errors so some people (Letang Fans Mainly) started talking Norris Trophy candidate. And others, like myself, held out some hope that maybe he could evolve as you put it or at least mature.
Unfortunately, as you pointed out, as well as he reads the offensive zone, his defensive reads are the exact opposite. Furthermore, again as you point out his tendency toward foolish (Selfish you called and you are right here too) penalties often put the Pens behind the 8-ball.
Granted, in a game that goes to a shoot out, I would choose him in a heartbeat to be one of my shooters, however, in the 3rd period of a game, particularly in the final 5 minutes, I would limit his ice time if I were winning and trying to hold the lead.
Honestly, although I am not there yet, I am close to start banging the drums for Pedan or Bengtsson to get some playoff experience and Letang some rest time in the Press Box. Yes I love winning 8 – 5 in a nail biter that I am afraid may turn into a loss, but I would rather win 4 – 1 in a game where I felt the team was more in control.
And before anyone start complaining, remember I said I am not there yet and I am well aware that my views may be slanted by a couple of frustratingly weak defensive games by Letang. As fans go, we can sometimes be a little mercurial in our feelings, swayed by what we saw on the last shift.
Hey Other Rick,
Thank you for having the prescience to write what I was thinking.
Dave asked me how the game was going at the gym last night and I immediately launched into a diatribe about Letang’s misplay on the first goal. For some reason known only to ‘Tanger’ and the Maker, he left Filppula totally uncovered. I mean, flat-out turned and skated AWAY from him, letting him breeze down the slot uncontested. Which, of course led to a prime scoring chance, which led to a scramble, which led to Giroux’s goal.
Your comment about him looking like a 6-year-old trying to learn how to play soccer was dead, spot-on. His reads in the d-zone are horrendous. He has absolutely no bleeping defensive acumen at all.
Hell, I’m 61 years old, can’t skate, and I bet I could play better defense than Letang does at times.
Out of curiosity, I checked his goals on ice against numbers during the regular season. He was on the ice for 109 (11th most in the NHL) of the 248 non-shootout goals the Pens allowed…or 44 percent of our goals against.
While it’s not horribly out of line given his ice time (on average about 42 percent of a 60-minute game) it sure seems like he’s on the ice for a ton of goals against.
Rick
Hey Rick,
Again, I hate to beat a man while he is down but among the Penguin Defensemen that played more than 10 games Letang had the worst GA/60 of even strength ice time, 3.48 (Hockey Reference has him at 3.4 but hockey reference doesn’t TOI doesn’t match up with the NHL web-site so I trust my numbers more)
Even so the second worst GA/60 was about 0.5 goals lower; Ruhwedel at 2.97, that is a big difference. So that may be why you feel he is such a D liability.
Oleksiak had the lowest GA/60 of even strength ice time, so he was the best defensive D man on the squad. Oddly enough Oleksiak also had the 2nd best GF/60 of even strength ice time among D men; Only Schultz was higher (3.43 vs 3.73: Letang checked in at only 3.13).
Perhaps the problem is as Dee suggests, too much ice time for Letang. The Pens may be able to get more out of him by giving him less ice time. Perhaps his laziness and/or nonchalant ness is more a question of exhaustion than actual lack of ability.
Letang just gives up on plays. It’s a problem. The shorthanded goal was 100% Letang thinking they had the man advantage, the Flyers guy will skate back and play defense. It happens way too often. He needs to go to the whistle. It what makes Hornqvist a great player and as a weird reference, it is what has always made the Steelers a step above the rest.
From the kick him while he’s down catagory, Letang set a new regular season team record for giveaways this year. 17 more than his previous record. Right now he’s tied for second in the playoffs.
Agreed Phil,
I have said this before, the only partner I have ever seen capable of negating Letang’s liabilities was Paul Martin.
I appreciate all that he has done for the Pens and respect his offensive instincts. I think it was last year or the year before when he was the Pens best Shoot Out Shooter.
And I was thinking the same thing you just stated about Letang on the last 3 goals the Flyers scored, “Why is he just standing there watching the play happen?” Letang may not be the only lazy player on the team, but it seems like he is the one that gets exploited the most.
Hopefully, he will be sufficiently embarrassed by his performance last night and come out all guns blazing and help the Pens get a big lead so his mistakes aren’t quite as bad.