PHN EXTRA: Kris Letang Ready; Feels ‘Million Times Better’

CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Kris Letang will be the first one to admit he wasn’t physically where he wanted to be last season.

“I think at the beginning, the middle, it was different,” the 31-year-old defenseman said. “I never had surgery before, knock on wood it doesn’t happen again,  so it was different for me.”

Letang has his 2016-17 season cut short during the defense of their Stanley Cup title. He was diagnosed with a herniated disc in his neck that limited him to 41 games and was deemed at the time to be career threatening.

He sat out for several weeks before he had surgery to repair the disc in early April. Consequently, he missed the Penguins entire 2017 championship postseason run.