Kris Letang sat at his stall late last night at PPG Paints Arena, skates unlaced and sweater stripped off, minutes after the Penguins' momentous-by-October-standards 4-0 shutout of the previously perfect Avalanche ... and an unmistakable smile.
I know that smile. Been covering the man for far too long to not know it.
In order of importance:
1. His team won.
2. He played great.
3. He's gonna let it marinate a little.
I've seen him stay put this way for as long as a half-hour. He'll do it at home, he'll do it on the road, he'll do it after commanding a rink to claim a Stanley Cup in San Jose and, yeah, he'll do it after his current team snaps out of a six-game, season-opening snooze with as complete, as inspired a collective effort as anyone could've conceived against the superlative likes of Nate MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Cale Makar and more.
But I went ahead and sought out his 58 cents on the evening, anyway.
“I think it’s a good game because when you face a team like this, and they have MacKinnon, Rantanen and Makar, your focus is on defense," he'd reply. "Obviously, when these type of players try to make plays and you focus on that part of the game, sometimes it may actually improve your offense. So, no, I think when the focus is in the right place, usually it’s a recipe for success.”
Yep. They were terrific. All of them, as Taylor Haase describes in her full game report.
But this guy ... I mean, I could illustrate countless sequences to support my contention that no one on either side of this star-laden event was better than Letang. All the tape-to-tape breakouts. All the races won to all the retrievals. All the times he'd stood up opposing forwards at the Pittsburgh blue line. And, maybe my favorite, the one time he repeatedly pounded poor Artturi Lehkonen near Tristan Jarry's crease.
It was a defensive clinic.
My goodness, and I didn't even mention that, with Colorado getting four power plays, Letang was on the ice for a team-high 5:31 of short-handed time. And despite all that firepower out there, the Avalanche failed to register a single shot on Jarry while Letang was out there.
As Ryan Graves would share with me, "He was unbelievable. He’s an offensive guy, but he has a pride in the way he defends. He defends with a good, long stick. He’s got good feet. He’s quick with the way he attacks pucks and things like that. And his offense comes from defending well. That’s what he’s been through his whole career.”
Uh-huh. Brooks Orpik shared a similar observation with me many moons ago. Holds true to this day.
It's also why Letang himself had stressed to me early in training camp, when I'd initially asked about any possible discomfort upon the Penguins adding Erik Karlsson to the same side of the same positional depth chart, "We're not the same type of player."
Because they're not. Karlsson's about offense first, last and with a three-goal lead in an elimination playoff game, whereas Letang builds from the back.
And yet, to be totally transparent, there's been a part of me over these first couple of weeks that wondered how Letang might be taking, for example, seeing Karlsson manning the right point on the top power-play unit, while he was moved to the second. And beyond that, how Letang, who's never won a Norris Trophy the way Karlsson has three times now, who's never popped 100 points the way Karlsson did just last season with the Sharks, who's never received even a fraction of the hockey world's fanfare that Karlsson has for a decade-plus ... how he'd respond after being the top-dog D in this town forever.
Man, was that a waste of my time.
“Look, I’m at a point in my career where the most important thing is to win," Letang would tell me after I brought this up. "Individual trophies ... when you’re in the league and you see those trophies, they’re pretty cool. Obviously, I’ve played with two guys that won so many individual trophies."
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, of course.
"But we don’t talk about those. We’re only talking about the Cups they won. At the end of the day, that’s all I want.”
Another one?
"Another one. And this, having a great player like Erik here, adding all these other players we've added, that only gives us another shot at what we all want."
I use this line all the time as applied to Sid and Geno, but I'll expand to the third member of the Core: Never take him for granted, Pittsburgh. He's the greatest defenseman in franchise history, and nothing and no one will change that.
MORE PENGUINS
• What if they'd lost? And if they'd fallen to 2-5? And if the lowlight again would've been the power play? And if Jarry had been shaky right after Alex Nedeljkovic was placed on IR? And if Mike Sullivan hadn't achieved an absolute master-class in how to boomerang everyone back into his system? ... Let's just say there were lots of sighs of relief in the place. And Sullivan might've hinted out loud to that effect when remarking, "This was an important win for our team for a lot of reasons. I think it'll give us something to feel good about."
• No one needed it more than Jarry. The internal bar for him, fair or not, is very high. Like top-five-goaltender-in-the-world high. And he's being pushed correspondingly.
• Speaking of players being pushed, Sullivan's unsolicited glowing assessment afterward of Drew O'Connor's performance -- "I thought it might have been OC’s best NHL hockey game" -- shouldn't slip through unnoticed. Sullivan's got a vision of this kid being the quintessential big-bodied disruptor, in addition to his other skills, and he never lets it go. Which is fine because he's right. O'Connor was smothering Colorado's defense every other shift.
• Don't sleep on Ryan Shea, I'm told. The coaches like what they've seen of him so far. More, by the way, than what they've seen of Graves so far.
• When Lars Eller runs for mayor, even if it's of Copenhagen, I regret to inform everyone here that I'll have retired from writing to become his campaign manager. No one's spoken more truths through October, and no one's followed up on those quite like he has. He totally gets that this team needs to defend first, score later. He's been there, lived it elsewhere, and he actually plays that way, anyway.
• The crowd of 17,154 was about 1,500 shy of a sellout, and that's to say nothing of lots of other seats that were sold but stayed unoccupied. If it becomes a trend, it becomes a trend. But a longtime NHL exec told me that there's nothing that teams hate more than having to sell tons of tickets in a tight timespan such as this four-game homestand. The reason: People prefer to spread out such purchases. I'm told the crowd Saturday against the Senators will be at or close to capacity.
STEELERS
• The moment Cam Sutton left for the Lions through free agency this past spring, it was known to all that, one, he got paid in a big way -- three years, $33 million -- and two, that he'd need to be replaced in a big way. Which was when/why Patrick Peterson was picked up. It's been broadly presumed that Sutton opted for Detroit because of the money, but I'm told that Sutton's primary motivation was that his girlfriend had moved there, along with his two very young daughters, Luna and Eye’Lah. He'd spoken with pride in the past of being a "girl dad" of his love for those two. Family came first.
• If Kenny Pickett's afflicted with some first-three-quarters malaise, his wide receivers aren't seeing it. They're adamant, to a man, that neither his decision-making nor his passing are an issue, even as they'll acknowledge that he's that much sharper in the fourth quarter. I've heard this from others, too, and it supports my own stance that the more pressing matter in the early going has been the pass protection.
• If there's a trade to be made before the NFL's Tuesday deadline, don't expect it to involve Dan Moore. Or any of the three tackles. The reason: Moore's already been groomed to play either side, and he'd be a far less expensive option on the right side if Chuks Okorafor's final year of a three-year, $29.25 million contract gets scrapped. That's a slew of cap space that could be reallocated elsewhere ... but only if Moore stays.
• Anyone waiting for Mike Tomlin to flip out on George Pickens on a matter related to discipline ... will be waiting a long time. Tomlin made up his mind soon after drafting Pickens that he'd be best handled via positive reinforcement. The head coach doesn't see Pickens as some bad kid -- nobody does, at least that I know of -- so he ensures that everyone in Pickens' football vicinity keeps him focused on what's best for the team in a happy-happy kind of way.
• Remember when Karl Dunbar, the venerable defensive line coach, told me early last summer that Montravius Adams was atop the team's depth chart at nose tackle? And remember how I wasn't sure if that was the total truth, given the fuss over Keeanu Benton and a couple other youngsters? Well, shame on me for doubting Dunbar. This is why they'll favor veterans -- or at least ensure they get first chance -- to prove themselves. If it weren't for T.J. Watt, Adams would've been the Steelers' most dynamic defender in Los Angeles.
• Matt Canada might or might not get credit for the second-half-surge in Los Angeles, but I can attest that the players insist there were no significant schematic adjustments made at the intermission. The Rams had been stacking hard against the run, and that didn't really change. The Steelers just got better at beating them through the air.
PIRATES
• The projected payroll for 2024, presuming the likeliest 26-man roster based on present personnel, scarcely crosses the $50 million mark. Which might make it seem like there'll be a relative ton to invest into free agency. And maybe that'll be the case if, as I keep pressing, the payroll makes it back over $100 million for the first time since 2016. But I'm told, on this topic, that the team's open to applying money toward a Mitch Keller extension. There've been no talks yet, but again, I'm referring to an openness to have such talks. Which is where these things invariably begin.
• Hey, it'd follow a trend, right? Two years ago, it was Ke'Bryan Hayes. This past spring, it was Bryan Reynolds. And now, there'd be Keller. With no other real option, as I see it. The only other remote candidate might've been Oneil Cruz, as there'd already been one such approach by the team before his injury. But the injury ... that needs to play out.
• Imagine that, someday, the morning of Game 1 of Major League Baseball's World Series could raise actual subjects of interest regarding the local franchise. More than this much, anyway.
• Thanks for reading Insider, as always.
