Post-Game Talk: Penguins 5, Devils 2: Geno Prevents ColePens from Losing His ****

[PensandCaps]

I'm not entirely against moving Letang. I don't think simply trading him and going in another direction slams closed the Cup window--which is already rapidly closing as is.

Marino is capable of anchoring a top pairing role right now, but I don't think we have nearly the offensive punch from the blueline without Letang. Schultz has been a shitshow for years, Petts/Dumo/JJ/Ruhwedel/Trotman/Riikola are all pretty low on the list purely when it comes to production from the blueline.

If we're dealing Letang, and I can see arguments for either side on that tbh, we'd better have a plan to inject some serious production from our defense because we're going to be woeful in that regard. I think Marino can do Letang's job defensively, but where do the points come from?

LD-Marino
Dumo-RD
Petts-Riikola

That's what you're looking at if you deal Letang, so the return better be unreal, imo. For all his warts, the guy is super important to this team. Not wholly irreplaceable, but definitely a situation where moving him probably causes more problems than it's worth. If you can land someone of Hamilton, Trouba, or Krug's caliber, you're very likely fine. But those are some seriously expensive players, and guys of that caliber are not easy to find or acquire.

none of those players can replace Letang.

 

[Peat]

This will sway absolutely nobody, but I had a fairly unscientific poke about NST to try and capture the players doing the same thing as Letang over the last three full seasons (i.e. not including this one to date) - 2 minutes a night on PK, 16% of the shot share on PK (Letang's a little higher than that), top 30 for shots for on PP (he's 16th), 4.49 p/60 on PP (letang is on 5.21), .95 p/60 or higher on 5v5 (Letang's 1.1), top 30 for scoring chance share at 5v5 (he's 8th) and 18 minutes a night at 5v5.

No other dman matched all those categories. Only Burns got 6. Here's the list of everyone who got 4 or more, including at least one on the PK and one on the PP -

Pietrangelo, Burns, Doughty, Karlsson, Muzzin, Spurgeon, Carlson, Giordano, Rielly, Subban, Ristolainen, McDonagh, Suter, Jones, Hedman. 15 other guys

Now obviously this is slightly biased by not every team needing the same from their dmen - I suspect Josi makes this list on a less stacked team, and that Ristolainen doesn't on a better one, to pick an easy one - but I'd say that's generally a pretty solid list of the dmen in the NHL who can do everything to a high standard while logging high minutes night after night. And that after running it through a common sense filter to add and remove a few names, you've got the guys who were the NHL's elite over that period. And Letang's form and responsibility hasn't really changed all that much.

Therefore anyone who thinks Letang hasn't been elite - or that a guy like Trouba or Krug can replace Letang - doesn't seem to be thinking about everything Letang does.