As the Pittsburgh Penguins head toward next week’s Olympic break, they’ll be without one of their key defensemen. The team announced that Kris Letang will miss at least the next four weeks due to a fracture in his foot. He has been placed on injured reserve as a result.
The 38-year-old has bounced back a bit offensively this season, picking up 25 points in 50 games after managing just 30 in 74 contests in 2024-25. Of course, that’s still a far cry from the routine showings of 40-plus points that Letang has had for the majority of his career, but his point total is still good enough to sit second among Pittsburgh defenders behind only Erik Karlsson.
On top of still being one of their more productive players from the back end, Letang is also one of their top minute-munchers, logging over 22 minutes per contest for the 16th straight season while taking a regular turn on both special teams units. That also ranks second behind Karlsson.
This is the second injury of note on Pittsburgh’s back end this week. The team is also without Jack St. Ivany for the next couple of months after he recently underwent hand surgery. Now, with Letang on injured reserve, the Penguins only have six healthy blueliners on their active roster, so a roster move to bring someone up from AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton seems likely. In the interim, Connor Clifton will return to the lineup after being a scratch for the past week.
This injury comes on the heels of Letang missing a pair of games last week due to an undisclosed injury. It’s unclear if this announcement relates to that, and he just wasn’t able to keep playing through it or if it’s a different injury altogether.
If there was ever a good time for a player to miss four weeks with an injury, this is it. With the NHL shutting down for more than three weeks for the Olympics, Letang is only slated to miss the next five games. Of course, if the fracture doesn’t heal as quickly as expected, he’ll miss more time than that, but as things stand, they shouldn’t be without one of their top blueliners for too long overall.