Letang reflects on career after setting franchise record

The Penguins literally hit the lottery in 2005 when they won the right to select Sidney Crosby first overall. But that draft was even more incredible because they managed to land another franchise player in the third round.
On Saturday, Kris Letang established a new Penguins team record for points by a defenseman (441) with an assist in Pittsburgh's 4-1 loss to Montreal, passing Paul Coffey and adding his name to the team record books alongside fellow Penguins greats like Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

"It's exciting. It's great," Letang said. "I've been here my whole career. I've played with great players. To get my name written in next to Paul Coffey is pretty cool. You grow up and you just dream about playing in the NHL. Now, to have my name next to Paul Coffey, it's pretty exciting."
Letang had just finished playing his first season with Val-d'Or of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League when the work stoppage that wiped out the 2003-04 NHL season finally ended. The league had a plan in place to crack down on the obstruction and clutching-and-grabbing that had slowed down the game and dried up the scoring. But no one knew if that plan would actually stick.

That meant teams questioned whether players like Letang, who possessed tremendous skill and skating ability, would thrive in the league with his relative lack of size.
"Even though I had a great year and everything, I played only one year of junior and I was in a market far away so the scouts didn't really see me that much," Letang said. "But teams were still thinking the old ways. They didn't know what (the new NHL) was going to look like.
"The big defensemen, strong guys, were the key there. Teams started taking more chances in the second and third rounds with smaller defensemen that skate."
That's exactly what the Penguins did with Letang, whose agent told him he would likely go somewhere between the bottom of the second round and top of the fourth, which ended up being right on - he was taken with the first pick of the third, at 62nd overall.
That day, Letang was at home on his computer, "trying to refresh every second" before receiving a phone call informing him he had been drafted by the Penguins, one of 15 teams he had interviewed with at the combine.
Letang was thrilled not only because he had grown up watching and idolizing Lemieux and Jagr, but because he was joining a generational talent in Crosby. Crosby was somebody that Letang had played against in the QMJHL, and he said at times he would get caught just staring at him playing because he was so amazing.
"I was just excited. I was just happy," Letang said. "That day you don't really mind where you get drafted, you just want to go. When the emotions settled and I knew I was going to Pittsburgh with Sid, it was exciting. Especially because they were a team that was kind of rebuilding, so they were looking for young guys. I kind of saw a big opportunity to come in even at 18 years old, to show up and prove something. It was cool."
Letang returned to Val-d'Or for a second season the year after he was drafted, but made the Penguins' opening-night roster at 19 years old in 2006.
Colby Armstrong, who was playing for the Penguins at the time, said he and his teammates hadn't heard much about Letang before he joined the team as YouTube hadn't yet taken off. But once they saw him play in person, the rookie opened eyes right away.
"I remember him playing games with us, and you're talking about a guy coming in and playing when we had Ryan Whitney, who was an offensive guy at the time on the power play, and Sergei Gonchar," Armstrong said. "Then we had him, who kind of came in and at the time he was really young, but he held his own. He didn't lack confidence as well, which was a good thing (laughs)."
Letang appeared in seven games with Pittsburgh before spending the rest of the year with Val-d'Or while also captaining Canada's entry at the World Junior Championship. While going back down can be disheartening for young players, it didn't have a big effect on Letang's confidence.
"I came in and I was confident in my abilities," Letang said. "Even going back to junior, I even took even more confidence. And after that, when I came here, I felt comfortable."
Letang ended up starting his second season with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, but after 10 games, the Penguins brought him back for good. That season, the Penguins inducted Coffey into the team's Hall of Fame, where he attended a home game at Mellon Arena. As he looked down at the ice, he leaned over to his former teammate and AT&T SportsNet color analyst
Bob Errey
and asked:
"Who is 58?"
"That's Letang," Errey responded.
"That's a good player," Coffey said.
Though Letang was just 20 years old, Coffey recognized his talent on first glance.
"I could just see it," Coffey said. "Being a defenseman and playing that way he really caught my eye, the way he skated, the way he moved the puck. He was really heady on the ice. I've watched him ever since. He's a player that I really like to watch. When he's on the ice he's not afraid to make a play. That's why I enjoy watching him."
Coffey wasn't the only one to see Letang's potential. That year, Letang played in 16 playoff games as the Penguins advanced to the Stanley Cup Final, where Detroit defeated them in six games. The following year, management felt strongly enough about Letang that they felt comfortable dealing Whitney at the deadline.
"I think that's what shows what he is," Armstrong said. "When they went to the Final (in 2008) and lost, they ended up trading Ryan Whitney for what ended up being Chris Kunitz because they had a guy who could replace Ryan Whitney, who was a first-round pick, offensive guy. They thought hey, we've got Kris Letang. At that age they already knew what they had in him."
Letang played a huge part in helping Pittsburgh return to the Final and capture the Stanley Cup in 2009, tying Larry Murphy's single-season franchise record for playoff goals by a defenseman with four. His biggest tally came in the Eastern Conference semifinals against Washington, where he helped turn the series around by scoring the overtime game-winner in Game 3.

Letang continued to grow and get better over the next few seasons, working tirelessly with current Capitals head coach Todd Reirden, who joined the Penguins staff as an assistant in the summer of 2010. The two of them had a meeting where they decided that the defenseman would try to improve and develop his game with a bigger challenge in mind: being one of the league's best.
Letang got started right away with a breakout 2010-11 season, where he was overwhelmingly voted to the 2011 NHL All-Star Game via fan balloting despite having to be a write-in candidate, the first of four All-Star nods.

His rise was eventually highlighted by getting selected as one of three finalists for the Norris Trophy, which is given to the league's best defenseman, following the 2012-13 season. That summer, Letang signed an eight-year contract extension worth $58 million.
Just when everything was coming together for Letang, adversity struck. In the 2013-14 season, Letang missed 26 games after suffering a stroke. In the 2014-15 season, he missed the final seven regular-season games and all of the playoffs after being diagnosed with a concussion.
But Letang recorded career-highs across the board in 2015-16 with 16 goals, 51 assists and 67 points before logging monster minutes in the playoffs, where he captured his second Stanley Cup with the organization, scoring the Cup-clinching goal in Game 6 at San Jose.
But just as it looked like Letang had finally put all of his health issues behind him, he suffered another setback in the 2016-17 season when he underwent major neck surgery that ended his year, forced him to miss the entire postseason and affected his play after a lengthy rehabilitation. He's been through more in that regard than anyone should, but it's given him an even greater appreciation for where he is now.
"When you get treated like we're getting treated here, you're blessed," Letang said. "You don't want to take anything for granted because hockey goes fast. I had the chance to play with guys like Billy Guerin, John LeClair, (Mark Recchi), and they tell you to enjoy every moment because it goes fast. The next thing you know you're done with hockey. I can't take anything for granted. We have the best organization in hockey and just to have the chance to be here every day is special."
Letang is incredibly proud to have played his entire career to date with this organization, and to have done so alongside Crosby and Malkin. The three of them have done their part to help re-write the record books on their way to winning three Stanley Cups together.

"It's fun. That's the best part about the game, just sharing those kinds of things with your teammates," Crosby said. "It's a pretty cool feat. I don't see him slowing down any time soon."
That sentiment was shared by Armstrong, Gonchar and Malkin, who were all adamant that Letang still has a lot left to give the Penguins, the team he said he would sacrifice everything for.
"He's an elite player and an elite defenseman," Malkin said. "The best defenseman on our team, an All-Star defenseman in the league. We've won three Cups together, it's amazing for us. He's older and older but he skates faster and faster every game. He worked hard all summer, he's had a couple bad injuries but he's back. This year I hope is the best year for him. I see his emotion, he's excited to come back and we understand he's a huge part of our team."