After re-upping with the Penguins for another six years, Kris Letang came out of the gates with back-to-back dominant performances in the first two games of the season.
In what's become a distant memory, the Penguins started out 2-0 with victories over the Coyotes and Lightning, outscoring both by a total of 12-4. Letang was a massive part of that equation. He logged just over 46.5 total minutes during all situations in those two games. During his ice-time, the Penguins had a 7-1 advantage in goals, a 51-16 dominance in shots, and a 7.86-0.93 supremacy in expected goals. Individually, he recorded three assists.
Of course, all-situations on-ice metrics can be (and often are) misleading. That time included 10 minutes on the power play to not even a minute and a half on the penalty-kill. But looking solely at how the Penguins fared with Letang on the ice at 5-on-5 in those games only reinforces how dominant he was. In a touch under 34 such minutes, the Penguins finished with a 3-0 edge in goals, a 30-13 lead in shots, and a 4.55-0.56 expected goals advantage.
What really stood out, which was apparent in the numbers, was that the opposition was hardly creating anything at all when Letang was out there. That was important because his defensive impacts had been rather poor for several seasons. But as Mike Sullivan would say at the time, "I just think he’s picked up where he left off last year. I think he's playing a calculated game."
Letang's average game score (a statistic that aims to provide one value for a single-game performance that includes individual and on-ice metrics) through the first two games of the season was 4.64, which led all NHL skaters by a significant margin. That was hardly the case moving forward. His impact fell off in a big way.
Over the next 19 games, leading up to the stroke he suffered in late November, the Penguins were outscored, 18-13, with Letang on the ice at 5-on-5 while taking only 42.5% of the shots on goal and generating just 44.6% of the expected goals. On the scoresheet, he registered a lone goal and nine points. Just as he wasn't the only factor contributing to the strong early results, he wasn't the only factor contributing to the subsequent poor results, but it was glaring how ineffective he was offensively at times, as well as how frequently opponents were creating quality looks for themselves.
The next couple months were brutal for Letang, as he dealt with the stroke, a lower-body injury upon return, and the passing of his father. Once he finally returned to the lineup for good on Jan. 24 (a four-point performance against the Panthers, including the winning goal in overtime), his game rebounded in a big way and returned to the level the Penguins needed out of their No. 1 on the back end.
Across Letang's last 35 games, the Penguins outscored the opposition, 32-27, with him on the ice at full-strength as they took 54.3% of the shots and created 55.5% of the expected goals. He scored 10 goals and had 25 points. That's really strong in its own right, but even more so considering the Penguins ranked just 21st in the NHL by standings points percentage during that span.
Letang's early-season defensive excellence didn't quite return with his overall brilliance. The Penguins allowed 2.92 expected goals against per hour during his 5-on-5 ice-time after he returned for good, it just didn't matter because of how much he was helping them create at the other end of the rink, which was 3.65 expected goals for per hour. To put that in perspective, the Devils generated 3.56 expected goals for per hour with Damon Severson on the ice this season, the highest mark of any defenseman to play at least 500 full-strength minutes.
What might be most important when it comes to Letang's big rebound in the second half of the season, aside from proving he's still capable of playing at that level, is that he and Marcus Pettersson flashed some extreme chemistry together before Pettersson got hurt and missed most of the final month. The two of them were paired up halfway through a March 7 matchup with the Blue Jackets and stayed together until Pettersson's injury on March 18. The obvious caveat is the sample size, but in 102:55 together at 5-on-5, the Penguins were plus-six in goals, plus-30 in shots, plus-4.7 in expected goals and plus-28 in high-danger chances.
Pettersson and Letang warrant another look together next season, especially with Brian Dumoulin unlikely to return. Regardless, Letang turning things around in the face of adversity was massive.
• No, Letang's game wasn't perfect down the stretch. As mentioned, his defensive work was still pretty hit or miss and he did have a few games where he was guilty of trying to force too much when it wasn't there, but that wasn't exactly an issue unique to him on this Penguins squad. Even including his poor stretch, Letang's isolated impact toward his team's ability to create quality offense at even-strength ranked in the 93rd percentile for the season, per JFresh Hockey. That was his highest mark in any of the past three seasons. The Penguins can absolutely live with his faults for that, or considering he counts only $6.1 million against the salary cap.
• There's a pretty good argument to be made that Letang could've finished with quite a few more points than the 41 he had in 64 games. The Penguins scored about 17 fewer goals than expected based on the quality of their chances during his 5-on-5 ice-time, which is largely accounted for by poor finishing from the forwards he shared the ice with. He certainly would've factored in on a few of those with helpers.
• The Mikael Granlund trade was an absolute disaster. I'm not here to dispute that, at all. What I will say is that the Penguins at least performed really well defensively when he was on the ice, which was a bit surprising due to him having some of the league's worst defensive metrics upon arrival. The 2.14 expected goals against per hour they allowed with him out there at full-strength was a mark bested by only Josh Archibald from the time he was acquired through the end of the season. And even though he certainly had moments where he blew an assignment or didn't apply enough pressure, the Penguins surrendered just 1.99 goals against per hour during his 5-on-5 ice-time. Still, betting on that to continue into next season would be risky business. Over the past three seasons, his defensive impact at evens ranks in the seventh percentile of league forwards.
• While we're on the topic of defensive impacts, I think it's worth mentioning each member of the Penguins' top six -- save for Sidney Crosby -- was below-average in that regard. Jake Guentzel was the biggest culprit, but Evgeni Malkin, Jason Zucker, Bryan Rust and, yes, even Rickard Rakell hurt the Penguins in their own end a bit more than you'd expect out of a league-average forward.
• Tristan Jarry finished the season with a .909 save percentage and 1.1 goals saved above expected. In other words, he was just slightly better than the middle of the pack. Of course nagging injuries had something to do with it, but I'm really struggling to look past the .890 save percentage and 8.1 more goals he allowed than expected in his final 20 appearances. Figuring out what's going to happen with the No. 1 goalie spot should be the new general manager's first order of business regarding the roster.
• Casey DeSmith was very up-and-down this season. Such is life with the goaltending position. For the millionth time, I'll remind everyone he's a perfectly fine backup, especially at his $1.8 million cap hit that runs through next season. His .905 save percentage doesn't dazzle, but he saved 9.1 goals above expected, which was good for 20th among all NHL goalies. No, he can't take over as the No. 1 for any real length of time, but he's a fine backup. There are seasons of data and numbers to reinforce this.
• Ron Hextall's first move as Penguins general manager was acquiring Mark Friedman off waivers from the Flyers. Hextall's last move before being fired last Friday was re-assigning Friedman to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton after he cleared waivers. The feisty 27-year-old defenseman appeared in only 23 games at the NHL level this season. While I was rather unimpressed with him through the first half of those games, mainly due to him activating off the blue line or joining the rush far less frequently than he did a season ago, he did really seem to find his stride in his last half of games. He's susceptible to getting exposed on the penalty-kill, but brings a ton of value by drawing more penalties than he takes and, if he keeps joining the offense regularly, I have confidence in him as a depth defender.
• The decision to take Friedman out of the lineup for Dmitry Kulikov in the final two games of the season (games that were must-win, mind you) still remains incredibly bizarre to me. Not only did Kulikov just spend most of the previous month on the shelf due to injury, he isn't a stylistic fit next to Jan Rutta whatsoever. Or how about the fact he played a whopping three games in black and gold prior to that? The kicker is that Friedman and Rutta had been enjoying utterly dominant results together in an extremely limited sample prior to the change. In 21 minutes with them on the ice together at 5-on-5, the Penguins had a 2-0 edge in goals, were plus-nine in shots and controlled 88.8% of the expected goals.
• Bryan Rust had a pretty disappointing season. Even though he scored 20 goals, he really struggled to convert on some of his high-octane chances and did not manage the puck well at times. Although, if he can rediscover his finishing touch, he might be in line to bounce back next season. The rates at which he shot the puck and created individual expected goals at 5-on-5 were the highest of his career.
• Thanks, as always, for reading. Taylor Haase and I have plenty of offseason coverage coming your way.
