{"id":96186,"date":"2020-12-27T20:41:47","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T01:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=96186"},"modified":"2020-12-27T20:41:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T01:41:47","slug":"mark-letestu-retires-nhl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/12\/27\/mark-letestu-retires-nhl\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Letestu Retires After 12 Seasons in the NHL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/letesma01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Letestu<\/a> announced his retirement from professional hockey. Letestu, a 5&#8217;10 right-shot centre spent 12 seasons with four different teams in the NHL. He declared his retirement at the age of 35.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Athletic: Mark Letestu, aka \u201cMr. Utility,\u201d has retired after 12 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NHL?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NHL<\/a> seasons as a jack-of-all-trades forward with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CBJ?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CBJ<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LetsGoPens?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#LetsGoPens<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LetsGoOilers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#LetsGoOilers<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/GoJetsGo?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#GoJetsGo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I got a lot of time out of being a short, slow guy in a fast man\u2019s league.\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/l4h2pehSNi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/l4h2pehSNi<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/viPzud4cso\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/viPzud4cso<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Aportzline\/status\/1343300181547216898?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Mark Letestu Retires From the NHL<\/h2>\n<p>Over his 12-year career, Letestu played for four different organizations. Signed as an undrafted free agent to the<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/penguins\/\" target=\"_self\"> Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> in 2007, he would then go on to play for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/bluejackets\/\" target=\"_self\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/oilers\/\" target=\"_self\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/jets\/\" target=\"_self\">Winnipeg Jets<\/a>. He spent more time with the Blue Jackets than any other team. Throughout his career, Letestu tallied 93 goals and 117 assists for a total of 210 points, in 567 games played. Touted as a jack-of-all-trades, Letestu had a solid career averaging just over 17 points a season.<\/p>\n<p>Letestu&#8217;s big break came during the 2009-10 season when he was playing with the Penguins AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins. Injuries to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/crosbsi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sidney Crosby<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/staaljo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jordan Staal<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/malkiev01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Evgeni Malkin<\/a> allowed Letestu to make the 23-man roster. He took this chance to show the Penguins he had what it took to stay in the NHL. The very next season was Letestu&#8217;s best in the league. He posted 14 goals and 13 assists in 64 games with Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n<p>Letestu played only seven games with the Winnipeg Jets in the 2019-20 season. Put on injured reserve Letestu due to a heart virus, he was out for six months. Just as he was about to return, the entire league shut down. As the Jets were knocked out of playoff contention by the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/flames\/\" target=\"_self\">Calgary Flames<\/a> in the best-of-five Stanley Cup Qualifiers. Letestu did not get to make an appearance in the official 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Letestu will be remembered as &#8220;Mr. Utility.&#8221; The versatile forward could do just about everything. Right-wing, centre, special teams, Letestu fit everywhere, whenever you needed him to. Letestu had the incredible ability to shape his game around some of the biggest names in the league, including Sidney Crosby and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/mcdavco01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connor McDavid<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"cMSEzifjSqZzzG0Ei4eg6A\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/466136043\" 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:'cMSEzifjSqZzzG0Ei4eg6A',sig:'Ql_aUQKwj2l3M_y-GKXU8jh6EbGsyiQaxOZWGASxx0A=',w:'594px',h:'416px',items:'466136043',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>Mark Letestu announced his retirement from professional hockey. Letestu, a 5&#8217;10 right-shot centre spent 12 seasons with four different teams in the NHL. He declared his retirement at the age of 35. The Athletic: Mark Letestu, aka \u201cMr. Utility,\u201d has retired after 12 #NHL seasons as a jack-of-all-trades forward with #CBJ, #LetsGoPens, #LetsGoOilers and #GoJetsGo [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3475,"featured_media":96220,"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":[11,23,4547,34,4548,12,33],"tags":[111,138,2989,955,44,4190,357],"class_list":["post-96186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bluejackets","category-oilers","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-penguins","category-jets","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-mark-letestu","tag-nhl-news","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-retirement","tag-winnipeg-jets"],"modified_by":"Jim Biringer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96186","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\/3475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}