Report: Pens’ Letang provides update on neck surgery

The injury history of Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang reads like the admittance log from a hospital ER. Broken bones, herniated discs, concussions… even a stroke! With Letang’s last debilitating injury, a herniated disc in his neck that required emergency surgery in April, now behind him the 30-year-old Montreal native is back on the ice and ready for action. That’s good news for Penguins fans.

While the team was miraculously able to capture their second back-to-back Stanley Cup championship this past spring without Letang’s help, there’s no denying his impact on the team. The smooth skating, puck moving defender leads the Penguins attack and is a master at retrieving pucks and delivering them to the team’s high flying forwards.

"Letang is healthy now and he makes up for a lot, even with the loss of [Trevor] Daley and [Ron] Hainsey," Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford said in an update. 

"I would expect a regular workload and I'm sure that's what he expects," Rutherford said when asked about Letang’s capabilities. "He wants to play 40 minutes a game, but I think the coaches will just take it a day or a week or a game at a time and see where it goes. I would suspect that he would probably ease his way into the preseason and then go from there."

Let’s hope Letang can manage to keep himself in the team’s lineup all season long. One of these seasons he has to catch a break.