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Kris Letang

Kris Letang Undergoes Heart Surgery

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Penguins defenseman Kris Letang underwent successful surgery to close a small hole in his heart called a patent foramen ovale, the team announced. He’ll miss the team’s final regular-season game but is expected back for training camp in the fall. The recovery time for the procedure is four to six weeks.

It’s a scary headline for a player who’s had a few of them in his lengthy career, so such a brief recovery window immediately comes across as good news. The two-time All-Star had strokes that caused him to miss significant portions of the 2013-14 and 2022-23 seasons, as well as a herniated disk in his neck that kept him from suiting up in the Penguins’ run to the Stanley Cup in 2017. While PFOs are usually innocuous and occur in about 25% of people, it does lead to an increased risk of stroke, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Letang, who turns 38 later this month, continued to be a workhorse in his 19th NHL season. His 17:53 of ice time in his final appearance of the campaign against the Bruins on Sunday was a season-low and the first time he’d logged under 20 minutes in a game since Jan. 8, 2024.

As the 2023 Masterton Trophy winner crosses into the second half of the six-year, $36.6MM extension he signed in 2022, his offensive production has begun to decline significantly. He posted 9-21–30 in 74 games this year for a 0.41 points per game rate, his worst since the 2009-10 campaign. The drop-off in point totals this season was accompanied by the worst possession metrics of his career, including a 48.6 CF% at even strength that was 3.1% worse relative to his teammates. His 47.4% expected goals share at even strength was also his worst since the stat was tracked in 2008.

Yet with few impact options on this summer’s free agent market and the future of Erik Karlsson in Pittsburgh in question, Letang will likely again open training camp in the fall as the Pens’ unquestioned No. 1 defender, at least in terms of deployment. Letang has averaged over 21 minutes per game for the last 17 seasons.

Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.

Penguins And Predators To Face-Off In 2025 Global Series

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The Pittsburgh Penguins will return to Stockholm next season to face-off against the Nashville Predators in the 2025 NHL Global Series in Sweden, per an NHL announcement.

The games are slated for Nov. 14 and Nov. 16 and will be played at Avicii Arena. The Penguins are returning to Sweden after taking part in the 2008 NHL Premiere Series. It will represent the second time leaders Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang will take part in games overseas.

The series will represent a homecoming for players on both sides. For the Penguins, Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson, as well as 30-goal winger Rickard Rakell will participate (barring injury of course), while the Peds will be represented by forward Filip Forsberg and defenders Adam Wilsby and Andreas Englund.

The NHL Global Series, started in 2017 in games between the Ottawa Senators and Colorado Avalanche in Stockholm, continues a long history of international competition for NHLers. This includes the 1938 European Tour between Red Wings and Canadians (a seven-game series that the Canadians won 4-3), the 1979–80 Super Series between Russian teams and NHL squads, and most recently the NHL Premiere Series, which ran from 2007 to 2011.

Rakell and Karlsson both expressed their excitement in playing in the series. Karlsson said the series will be a “great experience” and noted how fun it will be to play before family and friends in his home country. There is speculation surrounding Karlsson’s long-term future in Pittsburgh, so it’s not exactly a certainty he’ll be a Penguin next November.

Swedish-born Predators also expressed their excitement surrounding the series, including Forsberg who noted, “It’s obviously going to be a great time, a great opportunity for me.”

While it’s the first time Nashville will play in Sweden, it’s the organization’s third international trip. They played the Sharks in the 2022 Global Series in Prague, as well as a series against Pittsburgh at the GAME One Japan series in 2000.

In the 2008 Global Series, the Penguins split two games with the Senators. In those games, Crosby registered two assists, Malkin had a goal and an assist, and Letang registered nearly 50 minutes of total ice time between the two contests.

Latest On The Pittsburgh Penguins

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Josh Yohe of The Athletic writes that the Pittsburgh Penguins never came close to dealing forward Rickard Rakell prior to the NHL Trade Deadline. The Penguins reportedly didn’t care to deal Rakell and were happy to hold onto him, despite receiving several offers for his services. Pittsburgh general manager Kyle Dubas doesn’t want the Penguins to tank over the next few years and instead hopes to mirror the retool that the Washington Capitals recently went through.

Dubas did make plenty of moves leading up to the deadline, but didn’t move any of the bigger names such as Rakell or Erik Karlsson. Yohe believes that the Penguins would like to move Karlsson in the summer and are willing to retain as much as $3MM to facilitate a move. Karlsson hasn’t been terrible in Pittsburgh, but his style of play has not meshed well, and he has not been the Norris Trophy defenseman that Pittsburgh thought they were trading for in the summer of 2023.

If the Penguins move on from Karlsson, it will put more pressure on defenseman Kris Letang. Although it’s questionable as to whether he will stick around. Yohe speculates that Dubas will approach Letang to see if he still has interest in remaining in Pittsburgh during their roster turnover. Letang has a full no trade clause and three years remaining on his contract at a $6.1MM AAV. His actual salary in those three years will be $4.8MM per year, which could be appealing for teams on an internal budget. Letang is having arguably the worst season of his professional career but remains a top four NHL defenseman. He hasn’t publicly expressed any interest in moving on from the Penguins.

Yohe expects teams to call Pittsburgh this summer about forward Bryan Rust as his full no movement clause expires. While teams will be interested, Yohe doesn’t believe the Penguins want to move the veteran, who is playing some of the best hockey of his career with 21 goals and 26 assists in 55 games this season.

Given the nature of the Penguins’ deadline, and a desire to keep high character veterans in the fold, it looks as though the Penguins intend to turn things around quickly rather than enduring a five-year rebuild. Yohe acknowledges that next year will be tough for Pittsburgh, but the Penguins are hoping to contend for a playoff spot again in the next two years.

Metropolitan Notes: Kovacevic, Yegorov, Blue Jackets, Letang

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The Devils are discussing the idea of potentially trying to re-sign defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic, reports Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli (video link).  Acquired for a fourth-round pick from Montreal in the summer to add defensive depth, the 27-year-old is logging nearly 20 minutes a game for New Jersey and has become an important piece of their back end.  His presence helped push Simon Nemec to the minors, something the youngster recently voiced some frustration about; keeping Kovacevic could make it a bit harder for Nemec to get back to the NHL.  Signed to a cap hit below the league minimum this season, Kovacevic could push for $3MM or more on the open market if his second half play is similar to how things went in the first few months.

More from the Metropolitan:

  • Still with the Devils, prospect Mikhail Yegorov has found a new place to play. USHL Omaha announced that the goaltender has transferred to play at Boston University, effective immediately, a rare midseason enrolment.  The 18-year-old was a second-round pick by New Jersey last June, going 49th overall.  Yegorov improved his save percentage with the Lancers by 20 points this year, going from .892 to .912 but won just three of his 19 outings.  He’ll now get his feet wet at the college level and becomes the 14th NHL-drafted player on the Terriers.
  • Earlier this week, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported (Twitter link) that the Blue Jackets are open to the idea of holding onto their pending unrestricted free agents. Widely expected to be near the bottom of the division this season, Columbus instead has been on a nice run as of late to get into a Wild Card spot.  The sustainability of that position will be challenged over the next couple of months but given the value of a young core playing meaningful games down the stretch, it seems it might not be a given that their rentals will move if they slide back in the standings over the coming weeks.
  • The Penguins announced (Twitter link) that defenseman Kris Letang was scratched from tonight’s game due to illness. The 37-year-old had a quiet first half of the season by his standards, collecting seven goals and 10 assists in 40 games while still logging over 23 minutes a night of playing time.  That comes on the heels of putting up 51 points just last season.

Penguins Activate Kris Letang, Place Philip Tomasino On IR

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The Pittsburgh Penguins are making a few roster moves before their game against the Carolina Hurricanes tonight. Pittsburgh announced they’ve placed forward Philip Tomasino on injured reserve while later adding they’ve activated defenseman Kris Letang in a corresponding move.

Considering the Penguins had a full 23-man roster before tonight’s game, this transaction was expected. Wes Crosby of NHL.com reported earlier that the Penguins expect Tomasino to miss the next week or two with a lower-body injury while Letang became a game-time decision.

Tomasino’s injury dampens the young forward’s hopes for the 2024-25 season. The former 24th overall pick of the 2019 NHL Draft was traded from the Nashville Predators to the Penguins for a 2027 fourth-round pick earlier in the season appearing to turn a corner with the second organization of his career.

He scored three goals and four points in his first five games as a Penguin averaging 15 minutes of ice time per game, nearly two minutes more than his season-high with the Predators. Unfortunately, Tomasino’s production has cooled off dramatically with one goal and three points in the next 11 contests. Thanks to Pittsburgh’s 10-5-2 record in their last 17 games, Tomasino should rejoin a team on the hunt for a spot in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs which is more than what could be said of his former teammates in Nashville.

At the cost of some forward depth up front, the Penguins will get an addition to their defensive core in the form of Letang. Unfortunately, it won’t be quite the addition as it would have been in years past.

Letang is squarely in the middle of the worst statistical output of his lengthy NHL career. Assuming he plays in Pittsburgh’s remaining 42 games and continues his current offensive production, he’ll finish with 35 points in 76 games this season which would be the lowest since his tertiary campaign in the 2008-09 season.

Things don’t get any better on the defensive side of the puck. Letang is averaging a career-low 47.8% CorsiFor% and 87.5% on-ice save percentage while at even strength. Additionally, Letang is averaging an expected +/- in the negatives for the first time since the 2020-21 season.

Still, the Penguins are contractually committed to Letang for three years beyond this one and he still represents one of their better defensive options. He’s expected to play alongside rookie defenseman Owen Pickering on the team’s top-pairing tonight.

Penguins Activate Marcus Pettersson, Place Kris Letang On IR

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The Pittsburgh Penguins have swapped defenders on injured reserve, activating Marcus Pettersson (lower-body) and shelving Kris Letang (lower-body). Pettersson suffered his injury from an awkward hit into the boards during Pittsburgh’s December 14th loss to the Ottawa Senators. He’s since missed the Penguins’ last six games. Where Letang was injured is less clear. He was a late scratch for Sunday’s game against the New York Islanders, and has been designated as day-to-day per Hailey Hunter of SportsNet Pittsburgh. The Penguins will have the ability to make Letang’s IR placement retroactive to December 29th, making him eligible to return as soon as January 5th against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Pittsburgh swaps two of their most utilized defenders with this move. Letang leads the team’s skaters in ice time, averaging 23:24 through 34 games this season. Despite that, he’s been unusually unproductive, with 16 points marking his lowest scoring pace since 2009-10. Pettersson is working to catch Letang in scoring, with 13 points in 32 games while averaging 21:47 in ice time. His scoring pace puts him on track just narrowly beat out his career-high of 30 points set last season. Pettersson also brings a healthy wave of defense back to the Penguins lineup, leading the Penguins defense in Corsi For (52.93 percent) and ranked second in plus-minus (-4). That’ll be a welcome addition to a Penguins roster that’s averaged both 3.29 goals-for and goals-against in seven games without Pettersson, including the game he was injured in.

Pettersson’s return will bump Nathan Clurman out of the lineup. Clurman made his NHL debut on Monday, recording one penalty and no scoring in 11 minutes of ice time. Letang’s move to IR allows Pittsburgh to keep Clurman as their seventh defenseman, while Pettersson lines up to Pierre-Olivier Joseph on the second pair.

Penguins’ Kris Letang Out, Nate Clurman Makes NHL Debut

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The Pittsburgh Penguins were without star defenseman Kris Letang when they took the ice for warmups on Sunday. He was announced as out with a lower-body injury right before puck-drop, paving the way for rookie Nate Clurman to make his NHL debut. Clurman received his third call-up of the season on Friday. His prior two both ended in Clurman being sent down the very next day without any ice time – both trends he’s bucked on this recall.

Pittsburgh provided no additional details on Letang’s injury. He becomes yet another impactful Penguins defender to go down with injury, joining Marcus Pettersson (undisclosed) and Owen Pickering (concussion) who are both on injured reserve. Letang missed three games earlier this season due to an illness, but has otherwise held strong to his role as Pittsburgh’s top defender. He leads the team’s skaters in average ice time with 23:24, though that number is still far from the near-25 minutes of ice time that Letang has rivaled in every season since 2011-12. That dip in utilization matches Letang’s dip in productivity. He currently has just 16 points in 34 games, his lowest scoring pace since 2009-10. Both Erik Karlsson (25) and Matt Grzelcyk (18) rank higher than Letang in scoring.

With their star veteran out, Pittsburgh turns towards an effective, two-way AHL defenseman. Clurman has recorded five points, 10 penalty minutes, and a +6 in 18 games this season. He’s already tied his scoring totals from 37 games last year. Clurman was originally a sixth-round draft pick to the Colorado Avalanche in 2016, and turned pro in 2020-21. He bounced between the ECHL and AHL lineups for two years, but found strong footing in the AHL by 2022-23 – when he totaled 15 points in 57 games. Clurman will now climb the next rung of the ladder, and get his first chance to prove he can fit at the NHL level too.

Metropolitan Notes: Chytil, Andersen, Jarvis, Erne, Letang

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Rangers center Filip Chytil will not accompany the team on its upcoming four-game road trip, relays Vince Z. Mercogliano of the Rockland/Westchester Journal News.  The 25-year-old suffered an upper-body injury on Thursday versus San Jose with the team declining to provide further specifics.  Chytil, who has missed considerable time with concussions in the past (including the final 72 games of last season), is off to a good start this year for New York, notching four goals and five assists in 15 appearances despite an ATOI of just 13:40, his lowest since his rookie season.  It’s possible that Chytil could be cleared to join the Rangers partway through the trip if the injury winds up being a minor one.

More from the Metro:

  • Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen’s injury is not related to the blood clots that kept him out for a significant chunk of last season, notes Cory Lavalette of the North State Journal (Twitter link). After initially being listed as out week-to-week, he’s now out for considerably longer than that.  Lavalette adds that the team is weighing the possibility of Andersen having surgery although no decision has been made on that front yet.
  • Still with the Hurricanes, the team announced that winger Seth Jarvis has been placed on injured reserve retroactive to November 10th. He has missed the last two games with an upper-body injury and the team hopes he can return to practice next week.  Because of the retroactive placement, he’s eligible to be reactivated as soon as Sunday.  The move creates a roster spot for recently-recalled goaltender Yaniv Perets with the team also quietly recalling Ty Smith late Thursday.
  • The Rangers’ farm team in Hartford has released winger Adam Erne from his PTO, per the AHL’s transactions log. The veteran was previously listed as out week-to-week with a lower-body injury.  Erne had just one assist in ten games with the Wolf Pack prior to getting hurt.  A veteran of 379 career NHL games over parts of eight seasons (including 24 last year in Edmonton), Erne will now try to catch on elsewhere, presumably when he has recovered from the injury.
  • Before tonight’s game between the San Jose Sharks and Pittsburgh Penguins, the latter announced Kris Letang would miss his second straight game due to illness. When healthy this year, Letang has gotten off to one of the worst scoring paces of his career since his early days in Pittsburgh with two goals and six points in 18 games.

Metro Notes: Capitals, Couturier, Johnson, Letang

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Washington Capitals general manager Chris Patrick spoke openly about the team’s direction with Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic after reacquiring veteran forward Lars Eller from the Pittsburgh Penguins. Patrick told LeBrun that he got the sense that Eller would be traded somewhere else before the Trade Deadline, or even the New Year, prompting the Capitals to act sooner rather than later. Despite the early buy, Patrick said he still sees the move as a Deadline deal. He told LeBrun, “We said, ‘Maybe at the deadline, we should be looking at center depth. We were looking at (pending) UFAs and players who might be available, and Lars is obviously top of that list.”

Eller may be a defense-first depth forward in his old age, but reacquiring him is a strong statement of confidence from the Capitals after a 10-4-1 start to the season. They find themselves tied with the New York Rangers – who swept Washington in the first round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs – and Patrick emphasized that the on-ice product feels much improved. That’s in part a result of strong performances from Washington’s young talents – like Aliaksei Protas, Connor McMichael, and Rasmus Sandin. Those players give Washington a foundation to build on, and Patrick closed by pointing towards the retooling of teams like Dallas and Florida – who each managed to build lineups with strength top-to-bottom without sacrificing their future. That will be the long-term path that Washington tries to mimic, though they’ll first try to match the playoff success of the top-end teams they now find themselves among.

Other notes from the Metropolitan Division:

  • Philadelphia Flyers captain Sean Couturier is questionable for the team’s Saturday matchup against the Buffalo Sabres shares Kevin Kurz of The Athletic. Couturier missed Philadelphia’s Thursday game against Ottawa with a lower-body injury. He’s managed eight points in 16 games so far this season, while also filling a routine role on the team’s power-play. Morgan Frost will likely slot in for Couturier in the event of another absence, after playing 13:44 in the team’s Thursday win. He contributed one hit and five faceoff wins to the game.
  • Despite the lineup facing injury concerns, Saturday’s game will be celebratory for 2006 first-overall pick Erik Johnson, who sits one game shy of 1,000. He spoke openly about the achievement with Jackie Spiegel of The Philadelphia Inquirer, sharing how “mind-blowing” it is to near 1,000 games after nearly retiring a few years ago. Johnson spoke about the list of injuries he endured between 2019 and 2021, capped off by a concussion in January of 2021. Johnson cites that injury as giving him the mental reset he needed to reprioritize his health. He’s now set to become the 12th player from the 2006 NHL Draft – and the 133rd defender – to pass the 1,000-game mark.
  • Star Pittsburgh Penguins defender Kris Letang is sick and didn’t travel with the team to their Friday game in Columbus, shares Josh Getzoff of Sportsnet Pittsburgh. Letang has one point in Pittsburgh’s last five games and six points in 18 games on the full season. He remains a clear top-pair defender despite the lagging scoring, averaging 23 minutes of ice time and remaining a focal point of the power-play. He could be replaced by rookie Owen Pickering, who Pittsburgh recalled earlier today. Pickering is the Penguins’ top defense prospect and hasn’t yet made his NHL debut.

Kris Letang, John Ludvig, Matt Nieto Undergo Surgeries

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Three Penguins have gone under the knife in recent weeks, general manager Kyle Dubas announced Wednesday. Defenseman John Ludvig and winger Matt Nieto could miss the beginning of the 2024-25 season after undergoing successful extensor tendon and MCL surgeries, respectively. Star defenseman Kris Letang also underwent surgery to repair a fractured finger on his left hand on Friday but isn’t expected to miss out on any training camp action with an eight-week recovery timeline.

Ludvig had his left wrist surgery done back on April 24, the team said. His recovery window is four to six months, meaning he may be ready for training camp but could also miss the first few weeks of the regular season. Nieto will miss a more significant portion of next season, undergoing reconstructive MCL surgery on his left knee at the beginning of this month. He has a six-to-seven-month recovery timeline, putting his return to game action well into November or December 2024.

Today’s news offers some clarity into Dubas’ open-ended comments at his end-of-season media availability last month. The GM said Letang was searching for a second opinion on an undisclosed injury that he played through down the stretch, putting some speculative doubt into his availability at the beginning of next season.

A finger fracture falls firmly in the best-case scenario category for the 37-year-old, who should begin training camp ready to go as he enters Year 3 of his six-year, $36.6MM extension. He played in all 82 games last season for the second time in his 13-season NHL career, finishing just behind Erik Karlsson in Penguins defense scoring with 10 goals and 51 points.

Nieto is undergoing his second knee surgery in 2024. In January, he had laparoscopic surgery on his right knee, which was initially expected to sideline him for six to eight weeks but ended up costing him the rest of the season.

Dubas said last month that Nieto was also seeking a second opinion on whether surgery or rehab was required for his MCL injury. He obviously opted to go with the former. He sustained the initial right knee injury in late November, ending his 2023-24 season after just one goal and four points in 22 games. The 31-year-old inked a two-year, $1.8MM deal with Pittsburgh shortly after free agency opened last summer. Upon returning to the lineup next season, he likely won’t factor into anything more than a fourth-line role.

Ludvig’s rookie year was also stunted by injuries, namely a concussion sustained in his NHL debut that kept him out for nearly a month. After being claimed off waivers from the Panthers during training camp, the 23-year-old had three goals, five points and a -12 rating in 33 contests in a third-pairing role. He’s under contract next season at a $775K cap hit but will become eligible to sign an extension on July 1.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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