(Pittsburgh) Life is not just a long calm river. Kristopher Letang of the Penguins is emerging from a particularly difficult time.
In November, he suffered a stroke. It wasn’t his first. In 2014, he had to miss two months for the same problem, due to a birth defect. A few weeks later, he had the pain of losing his father, Claude Fouquet. After the funeral, the Quebec defender stayed away for almost a month, in particular to treat a lower body injury. Then in early March, Letang was shot in the face by Lightning’s Tanner Jeannot. This time, more fear than harm. Letang even returned to action later in the game to help his teammates in their quest for playoff qualification.
Since this series of misfortunes, things have changed. The Penguins have just won seven of their last nine games. They are fine. Letang is better too. He returned briefly, Tuesday morning, to his heart problems.
“It’s never really behind me,” he explained. It happened several times. We really have a plan right now that we’re going to execute. It will mean that I may have less stress, or ulterior motives of all this. But everything is stable. Everything is perfect. There is no problem. »
A few meters from him, in the Penguins locker room, his captain and friend Sidney Crosby was admiring. “It’s quite difficult to describe what [Kristopher] lived. Or how strong he was through the trials. As teammates, we try to support him as best we can. The whole team traveled to Quebec in mid-January to attend the funeral of Letang’s father. “But in the end, he’s the one who has to deal with all of this. We always knew he had a strong character. The past year has certainly been a challenge for him. It’s amazing how he handled it. »
At 35, Kristopher Letang remains the rock of the Penguins defense, with more than 23 minutes of play each game, and an elite offensive contribution, 15 points in 18 games, since his return in January.
Penguins lines in practice
Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Zucker-Malkin-Nylander
O’Connor-Granlund-Rakell
Heinen-Carter-Archibald
Pettersson-Letang
Dumoulin Petry
Joseph Rutta
In the notebook
As the Canadiens players arrived at their hotel at 3 a.m., they had training off Tuesday morning… Tristan Jarry will be the Penguins’ starting goaltender… Ryan Poehling, with an upper body injury, is closing in on a comeback in the game, but he will not face the Canadian… Dmitry Kulikov will also be absent. The Russian defender is injured in the lower body, and will miss at least the next four weeks.