Pittsburgh Penguins to reportedly be in process of re-signing Kris Letang – NHL news
After getting head coach Dan Bylsma and superstar player Evgeni Malkin down with long-term contracts, the Pittsburgh Penguins are reportedly in the negotiation process with top level defenseman, Kris Letang.
Letang, a 26-year-old native of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, is now on his last year of the pre-2010-2011 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season contract, which is a $14 million deal. His average salary for the year currently is $3.5 million and after
a boost in performance since then, experts are expecting his next deal to be nearly double that size.
Pittsburgh Penguins are one of those few teams in the NHL which can be termed to be over talented. They have a lot of quality players on their lineup but not enough money to award major contracts to everyone. Even though they would like to do that, the team
management is taking everything one step at a time to explore all of their options and keep the hard working players happy as well.
“I would prefer to retain a player like Evgeni Malkin, instead of saying, ‘Boy, I'm not sure if we can do this or fit this in,' and two years from now see the cap going up and say, ‘Boy, why didn't we sign him?'” Penguins General Manager Ray Shero said Thursday.
“And so, I want to operate in today, keeping a great player, and keeping this thing together either by salary cap, the play of our team, the happiness of everyone, and go from there.”
Obviously, this does not mean that GM Ray Shero is not willing to sign Letang, because he is one player that certainly works hard for them in the defensive end while putting up impressive numbers.
“I want to try to get to Kris and see exactly what they have in mind and to see whether or not that's going to work for us,” he added.
This past 2012-2013 NHL regular season, Kris Letang potting 38 points (5 goals, 33 assists) in 35 games played along with being under the positive borderline when it comes to plus-minus rating just once in his career.
He also had 16 points (3 goals, 13 assists) in 15 playoff games played.
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