It was a historic night for Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang, as he managed to set a new NHL record thanks to a high-scoring night.
Letang, 36, became the first defenseman in NHL history to get five points in a period, as he had five assists in the second period of Wednesday’s 7-0 win over the New York Islanders. Not only that, but he also managed to get another assist in the third to finish the night with six assists in the game. After Jake Guentzel and Marcus Pettersson set up Rickard Rakell for the game’s opening goal, Letang contributed to the next six straight, with three assists being primary and three being secondary.
Letang had struggled a little bit offensively before Wednesday’s game, but has now increased his scoring totals to three goals and 20 assists for 23 points in 33 games on the year. 21 of those points have come at even strength with him not being on the top power play unit in Pittsburgh anymore, so from that perspective, it’s still a very impressive season for the defenseman who has seen 37.82% of his production throughout his career on the power play.
Letang has been one of the better playmaking defensemen in the league in recent seasons as well. Since the start of the 2020-21 season, only five defenseman have more primary assists than Letang’s 77.
Letang was a former third-round pick of the Penguins in the 2005 NHL Draft, and he’s spent the entirety of his 18-season NHL career in Pittsburgh, winning three Stanley Cups in 2009, 2015, and 2016. He’s currently in the second year of a six-year contract with a $6.1 million cap hit, one he signed in the 2022 offseason just a week before the start of free agency that year.
The Penguins will look to build on their four-game point streak when they next play on Saturday where they’ll host the St. Louis Blues at 7 p.m. EST. They currently sit in seventh in the Metropolitan Division with a 16-13-4 record, and are three points out of the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
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