Blue Line
Behind The Net: Kris Letang
By Bob Grove

There's no mystery about the tangible benefits Kris Letang will bring to the Penguins' defense this fall if, as expected, he makes Michel Therrien's opening night lineup. The 20-year-old Montreal native is at his best with the puck, having amassed 120 points in his last 100 junior games with Val d'Or.

A third-round draft choice in 2005, Letang will be the rarest of Pittsburgh commodities as the only right-handed shot in the entire defense corps. Therrien, you can be sure, already has visions of Letang zinging home one-timers from the top of the left circle.

The numbers have also added up outside the smaller stage of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, where Letang this spring was honored as the league's best defenseman, best defensive (yes, defensive) defenseman and best personality. Letang scored two goals in seven games with the Penguins last October before returning to junior, and he delivered nine points in 12 games over the last two World Junior Championships, both won by Canada.

There's more where that came from.

"If I make the team, I'm going to concentrate on being a better player in my zone, but still I've got my offensive sense, and you can't say to an offensive guy to be only concentrating on defense," Letang said recently. "You can't say to Sidney Crosby, 'Don't play offense.' That's my strength, and I think I'm going to play to my strength. At this level you have to improve your game defensively. I will do that."

Just as promising as adding another point-producing defenseman to a group that already includes Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney, however, is the benefit to the Penguins of injecting into the roster another young player with demonstrated leadership abilities. Letang won his second WJC gold medal as captain of Team Canada, an honor 99.9 percent of Canadian kids never experience.

Former NHL defenseman and coach Craig Hartsburg named Letang his captain on the eve of the 2007 WJC in Sweden. "Kris Letang, to me, handles himself so impressively off the ice and on the ice in everything he does," Hartsburg said at the time. "If I was a player on that team, he would be the player I'd want to follow."

The Penguins, of course, don't exactly have a leadership vacuum. Sidney Crosby, the youngest captain in NHL history, will provide plenty of guidance along Gary Roberts, Mark Recchi and newly-added free agent defenseman Darryl Sydor - who just might be Letang's defensive partner. Letang will benefit from the presence of all of them.

In fact, when asked about his brief stay in Pittsburgh last season, Letang chose not to talk about what he accomplished but instead what he learned.

"I played with best player, I think, in the world and I played with good leaders," he said. "There are some guys that I learned about, like Crosby, about his leadership, and I (brought) all these little things to my (Val d'Or) club."

Letang did the right things in the wake of being named Canada's captain, from publicly urging his teammates not to be satisfied after a luckluster round-robin victory over Germany to downplaying his own accomplishments as he looked back.

"It was not hard (being captain) because every player on that team was the captain of his own team, they are all leaders, and the job was easier for me because everyone was focused to be the best player and be ready for every game," he said. "It was not a big job, but an honor to be captain."

There will be plenty of discussion at training camp next month about the things Letang brings to the Pittsburgh lineup. One of them is character.