In these trying times, Penguins defenseman Kris Letang delivered a message of hope this week.

If he harbors no ill will toward Scott Hartnell, we all can show more charity toward our fellow man, right?

In the waning seconds of an Oct. 8, 2009, game between intrastate rivals, Letang flew into a rage, alleging in no uncertain terms the Philadelphia Flyers winger bit his finger.

Now, it is water under the bridge.

“I ran into him a bunch of times after that. He’s a great guy,” Letang said. “Scott was a great guy. It didn’t really bother me. It’s all the heat of the moment.

“I’m sure I’ve done some stuff on the ice to other players. It’s my way to say I want to win this game. I want to be the best player out there. I’ll try to do everything I can. But if I’m walking on the street, I’m not going to hit the guy at the bar because he plays for another team, you know?”

There is a reason the classic bit of Penguins-Flyers rough stuff came up in recent conversation. If the NHL season had progressed normally, without the delay of a coronavirus pandemic, the longtime rivals probably would be in the midst of a first-round playoff series this week.

If the season resumes at some point this summer, there is a good chance they will meet again, and a chance for new animus to develop will present itself.

Playoff matchups with the Flyers have provided at least two important moments during Letang’s time with the Penguins.

The first came a few months before Hartnell’s bite. With the Flyers holding a 3-0 lead, threatening to force a Game 7 in a first-round series, Dan Carcillo made the ill-advised decision to fight Max Talbot. The Penguins forward lost the bout on points but snatched away momentum with a shush. The resulting 5-3 victory was a springboard to a championship.

“I was jacked up,” Letang recalled. “Obviously, Max was such a great teammate, a good friend of mine. To see him stepping up like this and do that for his team, it just shows that he was willing to do everything it takes to change the momentum and win the game.”

The Penguins’ back-to-back championships in 2016-17 also were set up by a Flyers series in an indirect way.

In 2012, the Penguins lost to their Keystone rivals in a wild, undisciplined six-game first-round series.

That setback provided the foundation upon which coach Mike Sullivan’s “just play” mantra stood four years later.

“There’s teams built to play that way, and there’s teams built with different assets,” Letang said. “It’s great to see guys stepping up and trying to play physical and play the mean game, but at the end of the day, it was not our strength. Our strength was our skill and our speed. I would say it taught us to kind of play with our strength.”

The idea the NHL would jump right into a Penguins-Flyers playoff series once play resumes is built on the premise the league will use the current standings to seed the postseason. The Flyers are second in the Metropolitan Division and the Penguins third, so they would collide.

There is another possibility, though. According to reports, the NHL also is considering rolling back its standings to the 68-game mark, the furthest point in the season all 31 teams reached before the pause, to seed playoffs.

That would mean a first-round matchup between the third-place Penguins and second-place … Washington Capitals.

And here is a dirty little secret about that potential meeting: Letang thinks it is a hotter rivalry anyway.

“Knowing that (Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin) were the two players that came into the league almost at the same time to take over built the Caps-Pens rivalry,” Letang said. “I would say, in the long run, Caps-Pens is the biggest one.”

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)