{"id":44152,"date":"2019-03-25T14:06:14","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T18:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=44152"},"modified":"2020-12-26T16:33:54","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T21:33:54","slug":"pittsburgh-penguins-lose-kris-letang-to-injury-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2019\/03\/25\/pittsburgh-penguins-lose-kris-letang-to-injury-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Penguins Lose Kris Letang to Injury Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/letankr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kris Letang<\/a><\/strong> is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury. The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/penguins\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> defenceman will be absent from the lineup as they take on the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/rangers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York Rangers<\/a> Monday night.<\/p>\n<h1>Penguins <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/letankr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kris Letang<\/a> Injured<\/h1>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Pens?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Pens<\/a> HCMS: Letang has an upper-body injury. Will not play tonight<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Josh Getzoff (@JG_PxP) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JG_PxP\/status\/1110214313304834048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 25, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Penguins head coach <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/sullimi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Sullivan<\/a> made the announcement Monday after the teams morning skate. This is the second upper-body injury in just about a month for the star defenceman. He previously missed 11 games associated with the injury.<\/p>\n<p>Letangs previous upper-body injury occurred during the Stadium Series game against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/flyers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Philadelphia Flyers<\/a>. He engaged in a scuffle with Flyers defenceman <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gostish01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shayne Gostisbehere<\/a><\/strong>, who landed on top of Letang. Letang hit the ice hard and was missing from the following chunk of games.<\/p>\n<p>After making his return to the Penguins bench on the 19th, he&#8217;s competed in just two of the teams tilts before sustaining this upper-body injury. The exact cause of the damage is unknown.<\/p>\n<p>In 63 games this season, Letang has netted 16 goals and 40 assists for 56 points. Over his 745 game career, he&#8217;s tallied 112 goals and 381 assists for 493 total points.<\/p>\n<p>The Pens are also without defenceman<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/maattol01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Olli Maatta<\/a><\/strong>. Despite joining the team for practice last week, he is not an option as he continues to recover from a shoulder injury. He has not dressed for a game since February 11th.<\/p>\n<h2>What This Means for the Future<\/h2>\n<p>Letang is a cornerstone for Pittsburgh&#8217;s defence. He averages 25:56 minutes of ice time a night, so his absence is a massive blow to the Pens. After losing him to the previous injury, the Pens shuffled their defensive group around and managed to go 7-2-2.<\/p>\n<p>With Letang out, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/t\/trotmza01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zach Trotman<\/a><\/strong> figures to slot back into the lineup. He will pair up with <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/dumoubr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brian Dumoulin<\/a><\/strong>. He&#8217;s also been utilized on the Penguins second power-play unit alongside <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/pettema01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marcus Pettersson<\/a><\/strong>. Trotman owns one point in 11 games this season after being recalled from the AHL in February.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"5Gnx6B8HTJpuLNkTpFbHfQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/1131464722\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'5Gnx6B8HTJpuLNkTpFbHfQ',sig:'KsUHiXvqChy8SYvtlMZuLGIhnrGhtrvpC8pWeCBccGQ=',w:'594px',h:'470px',items:'1131464722',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kris Letang is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury. The Pittsburgh Penguins defenceman will be absent from the lineup as they take on the New York Rangers Monday night. Penguins Kris Letang Injured #Pens HCMS: Letang has an upper-body injury. Will not play tonight &mdash; Josh Getzoff (@JG_PxP) March 25, 2019 Penguins head coach [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2818,"featured_media":44157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,12],"tags":[37,5738,259,2569,38,955,608,44],"class_list":["post-44152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-penguins","tag-hockey","tag-hockey-news","tag-kris-letang","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-news","tag-olli-maatta","tag-pittsburgh-penguins"],"modified_by":"Oscar Elieff","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2818"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}