Penguin for life? Kris Letang agrees to 6-year contract that will stretch into his early 40s

MONTREAL – Alex Letang did not want to leave Pittsburgh.

His reasoning was fairly basic.

“That’s where I like to live with my friends and all that,” the cherubic 9-year-old son of Penguins all-star defenseman Kris Letang said while fielding a question from media at the Bell Centre during the NHL Draft on Thursday night.

Thankfully for his interests, his father won’t be going anywhere for a long time.

On Thursday afternoon, the Penguins formally agreed to a six-year contract extension with the elder Letang that is slated to keep him a member of the franchise until the 2027-28 season. The new deal will carry a salary cap hit of $6.1 million.

Kris Letang seemed pretty happy with the development as well.

“The Penguins gave me my chance,” said Letang, who was a third-round pick (No. 62 overall) by the franchise in 2005. “They took care of me like a son. … They always treated me like one of their own. When you have that feeling, sometimes it’s just natural. You want to finish there. The memories that we built as a team, it’s just incredible that I have a chance to stay with that team.”

How much of that team will remain in place going into the 2022-23 season remains to be seen. Following Letang’s signing, the Penguins now have $15,308,158 of salary cap space remaining with nine forwards, seven defensemen and two goalies under contract, according to Cap Friendly.

Several of the team’s incumbent players remain unsigned with the NHL’s free agent signing period set to begin on July 13.

Most notably, one of the other pillars of the franchise, forward Evgeni Malkin, is set to become an unrestricted free agent.

Letang professed optimism — or perhaps even offered hints — that a new deal with Malkin could be completed on three separate occasions while speaking at the draft.

“Obviously, having (Malkin) back will make our team that much better too,” Letang said.

Having Letang back will certainly offer some good things for the Penguins as well. Last season, he established a career-best with 68 points (10 goals, 58 assists) in 76 games and logged 25:47 of ice time per contest, the fourth-best total among NHL skaters.

“Kris means so much to our hockey team,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “He’s a difficult player to replace. His game has never been better in my time here. He’s a guy that really takes care of himself. His fitness level is off the charts. He’s an elite defenseman and those players are very difficult to replace and they’re very difficult to find.

“With respect to Kris, just the legacy that he’s built in Pittsburgh and what he means to the Pittsburgh Penguins and the city of Pittsburgh just speaks for itself. For a lot of reasons, it’s a terrific signing for us, the Pittsburgh Penguins organization and (Letang) himself. I know his teammates are thrilled. His coaching staff certainly is and his management group is as well. We feel a lot better right now that we’ve got him under contract and he’s going to be a Pittsburgh Penguin for a long time.”

Having just turned 35 in April, Letang received a lengthy deal that will potentially keep him in the Penguins’ employ until he is a ripe 41.

Letang suggested he might have more to offer by the time this contract expires.

“I always saw my career going that far,” Letang said. “For the time I put in my training, the way I do my (conditioning) off the ice, in my mind, I was going to play at that level until I was 40, 41, 42. Maybe even more. The passion is there. It’s not only about security. It’s more about the fact I invested in that, and that’s what I wanted.”

The contract is constructed in a specific way that will likely prevent a buyout in the later years. According to TSN, the first four seasons have a full no-movement clause and the last two seasons have a partial no-movement clause. (Letang can submit a list of teams he would not accept a trade to for those two seasons).

Additionally, the final two years each contain signing bonuses of $3.8 million, which would make a buyout disadvantageous for the Penguins’ purposes.

From Letang’s perspective, he was willing to take a smaller salary cap hit from his previous contract ($7.25 million) in part to allow the Penguins to compile the most competitive team as possible.

“It was more of a contract to fit both parties,” said Letang, who was greeted by rousing applause from his fellow Montrealers when he announced the Penguins’ first-round pick, defenseman Owen Pickering. “Give a chance to the Penguins to sign other players and also based on the performance and what I did in the last few years. I think it was a mix of both. There was not like a set number or a set of years. It was just to fit both parties and make sure we can still compete and win and not take a big chunk and not leaving anything.”

Letang has a considerable history of medical woes, most notably a stroke he suffered in 2014. But over the past three seasons, he has missed only 13 of a possible 207 regular-season games.

“His fitness level is off the charts,” Sullivan boasted. “The fact that he’s played the amount of minutes that he plays year in and year out, game in and game out … it’s not something that we feel as a coaching staff is outside his comfort zone. There are some nights when we’re behind the bench where we feel can’t get him enough ice time. That just speaks to his work ethic and commitment to the off-ice training and the on-ice training to put himself in the best position to be successful.”

It’s certainly fair to wonder how successful the Penguins can be moving forward, particularly after four consecutive seasons in which they have failed to win a postseason series.

But for the variety of malfunctions that have plagued them in the playoffs in recent years, a lack of faith isn’t one of them.

“The team that we had last (season) and the bad luck that we faced just before the playoffs, sometimes it kind of crushes your hopes,” Letang said. “But at the end of the day, the season we had with all the injuries, it proves that we had something solid from the coaching staff to the players.

“I think we have what it takes.”