{"id":962917,"date":"2026-07-27T18:05:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T18:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/962917\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T18:05:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T18:05:17","slug":"different-bucket-letang-fighting-rough-history-of-d-men-pushing-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/962917\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Different Bucket’ Letang Fighting Rough History of D-Men Pushing 40"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the 2025-26 season, Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas termed Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang<\/a> physically \u201cin a different bucket\u201d than most other players careening toward 40-years old. <\/p>\n

Indeed, not many players get to play at 39 or 40 years old, especially defensemen. Over the last five seasons, only three defensemen (Brent Burns<\/a>, Ryan Suter, and Mark Giordano) have played in their 39-year-old season. In the last 10 years, there have been only five, including those three. <\/p>\n

The others who survived were Andrei Markov, for whom it was his last season, and the ageless Zdeno Chara, who played until 45. <\/p>\n

While there isn\u2019t a large pool of examples, for those who have made it that far, there are very consistent themes of production and ice time, or rather, declining production and ice time. <\/p>\n

For Suter, the long-time Minnesota Wild D-man on the 12-year contract so monstrous that the NHL changed the rules, his production was a perfect step-by-step decline over his 37 to 40 seasons, when he retired. <\/p>\n

Suter\u2019s drop began in his 36 season when he stumbled to just 19 points in the shortened 56-game COVID season. After posting at least 40 points in nine of his previous 10 seasons, Suter then dropped to 32, then 24, 17, and 15 points. In his 37-year-old season, he played an average of 23:39 ice time, but it dropped in the next couple of seasons to below 19 minutes (before rising in one season with the St. Louis Blues to 19:28). <\/p>\n

That\u2019s a 64% drop in points and a 20% drop in minutes. <\/p>\n

Somewhat surprisingly, Markov didn\u2019t have much of a drop in points with the Montreal Canadiens, but also had a 14% drop in ice time before heading to the KHL.<\/p>\n

Giordano played his last three seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs and is an interesting study because his drops were sudden for then Toronto general manager Kyle Dubas<\/a>. After posting at least 38 points in seven of eight seasons, in his 38 season, he dropped to 24 points and then just nine points. That\u2019s a roughly 75% drop, and over his last three seasons his ice time fell 22.6% from 21:29 down to 16:37 before he called it a day. <\/p>\n

Even Burns, who is still chugging along at age 41, has experienced a 42% drop in points over the last three seasons, from 61 points in 2022-23 to 35 last season with the Colorado Avalanche. Burns \u2018 ice time has also fallen from 23:13 to 18:52, an 18.74% drop. <\/p>\n

As for the Penguins\u2019 Letang, who is 39, the statistical decline is in full force. A career of serious injuries and illness has taken a toll. After 51 points in 2023-24 in 24:41 per game, Letang fell to just 31 points in 21:41 of ice time last season. So, his production has already fallen by 40%. <\/p>\n

Of course, the Penguins blue line is still overloaded with righties, and Letang may get a few breathers to mitigate the slide this season.<\/p>\n

Projecting forward, unless Letang bucks the consistent trends, his decline should settle around 21 points (a 60% drop from \u201923-24), and if trends hold and the Penguins have suitable talent capable of filling minutes, his ice time could fall further to under 20 minutes. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTags: Kris Letang<\/a> <\/p>\n

Categorized:Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the 2025-26 season, Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas termed Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang physically \u201cin…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":962918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[42],"tags":[151321,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-962917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-kris-letang","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/962918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}