Veteran of 550+ games cut from tryout, future uncertain.

NHL veteran may have reached the end of the road.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Veteran of 550+ games cut from tryout, future uncertain.
Justin Cooper/CSM/Zuma

A long time veteran of the National Hockey League has just been cut from his tryout only days before the start of the 2018 - 2019 NHL regular season and now it appears that his future is in limbo. 

A new report from Jameson Olive of the Florida Panthers official website has just revealed that 33 year old veteran forward Mark Letestu has been released from his professional tryout offer with the Florida Panthers. This is a very bad sign for Letestu and many are now openly speculating on whether or not this could mark the end of his career in the National Hockey League.

Now it is f course true that Letestu could still latch on to an NHL organization prior to the start of the regular season or perhaps even at some point during the season itself but that doesn't seem particularly likely in my estimation. Letestu is coming off a pretty poor season in the 2017 - 2018 campaign and although he did end up playing for two different organizations there was a widely held belief that the veteran forward had seemingly lost a step in his game. 

Letestu began the season on the Edmonton Oilers roster and when you consider just how poorly the season turned out to be for the Oilers it's somewhat unsurprising to learn that Letest u's numbers also took a dive. In 60 games with the Oilers Letestu would record just 8 goals and he added 11 goals for a total of 19 points. Over that 60 game stretch with the Oilers Letestu registered a plus minus rating of -17. Letestu was then traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets as they looked to add veteran depth for their playoff run but it didn't pay off a great deal for Columbus. In 20 regular season games a a Blue Jacket Letestu recorded just 1 goal and added 3 assists for a total of 4 points and this time he finished with an even plus minus rating.

Now if you were to combine those stats Letestu effectively played in an 80 game season in which he recorded 9 goals and 14 assists for a total of 23 points on the season and a plus minus rating of -17 overall. Now of course we have to factor in how much the switch to a new system would have impacted his production but even then you can see the big step back he took from his performance just one season prior. During the 2016 - 2017 NHL regular season Letestu played in 78 games for the Oilers and that time around he recorded 16 goals and 19 assists for a total of 35 points and a plus minus rating of -2.

That marks a rather significant regression from one year to the next and I believe that it was this regression that scared several NHL teams off the idea of offering Letestu a contract as a free agent. The fact that he has now also failed to acquire a deal coming off of his professional tryout offer with the Florida Panthers also seems to suggest that Letestu's skills have diminished considerably in a short period of time.

That being said I wish him all the best moving forward.

[pub]


Source: