Unexpected reunion of Penguins defensemen Kris Letang, Marcus Pettersson provides stability

The Pittsburgh Penguins’ decision to weld Kris Letang with Marcus Pettersson on a defensive pairing in recent weeks wasn’t necessarily rooted in a sense of familiarity between the two long-time teammates.

Make no mistake, that made the choice easier to implement.

But that reunion was something of a happy accident.

When both players missed a handful of games between the middle and late portions of December, coaches opted to take their incumbent partners — Matt Grzelcyk and Erik Karlsson — and jerry-rig a new pairing between those two defensemen.

And with the Grzelcyk-Karlsson duo offering mostly satisfactory results, Pettersson and Letang were amalgamated once again once both were fully healthy.

“We thought (Grzelyck) and (Karlsson) played really well together,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said in Cranberry on Jan. 16. “And we know Marcus and Kris have a long history of playing together and they’ve always had chemistry. We felt the pairing of (Grzelcyk) and (Karlsson) was pretty solid so we chose to stay with it.”

Just to the naked eye, the Letang-Pettersson duo makes sense. Letang is an offensively talented right-hander who is confident in taking offensive chances while the left-handed Pettersson is a steady, reliable defensive presence.

Yet, they rarely skated together in their first handful of seasons as teammates once Pettersson arrived via a trade with the Anaheim Ducks in December of 2018.

Through Pettersson’s first three seasons with the team, Letang was predominately teamed with his long-time partner Brian Dumoulin. Midway through the 2021-22 campaign, the Letang-Dumoulin pairing was dissolved and Letang began to skate with Pettersson as his primary partner.

That union largely remained intact until last season when Pettersson was put with newcomer Erik Karlsson and that carried over to the start of the ongoing season until injuries hobbled Pettersson and Letang in December.

But once the calendar flipped to 2025, it has essentially been Letang and Pettersson.

“Marcus is such a reliable person on both sides of the puck,” Letang said Jan. 10. “He blocks shots, he throws some hits. He’s invested defensively which is always a good thing when you have a partner. He takes every detail seriously in a game. It’s fun to play with him.”

Pettersson is sated with the arrangement as well.

“A world-class player, first and foremost,” Pettersson said of Letang. “He plays his heart out every time he’s on the ice. That’s what stood out to me when I first got here. … He doesn’t back down from anything with the amount of minutes he plays. … His aggressiveness and his skating is top-notch. It’s a privilege to play with a guy like that.”

The duo offers stability from the vantage point of the man behind it.

“They’re two experienced guys,” goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic said. “(Letang) has played (19) years now. Marcus has had a lot of success internationally and here as well. He’s just a solid (defenseman). Both guys are solid. You know what you’re going to get from them. … It’s fun being on the ice with them. You feel comfortable with them out there as well. When you see they’re on the ice, you know they’re getting 100% from them.

“They’re doing whatever they can to help keep the puck out of the net.”