Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan gave a little bit of an update on the status of defenseman Kris Letang
"There’s just so much speculation around Kris’ injury. What I will confirm is that it’s not a concussion. It’s not related to a stroke or anything of that nature. Kris has an upper-body injury. He’s rehabbing the injury at home as we speak. We’re hopeful here that he’ll have a quick turnaround and we’ll get him back in the lineup. All of that speculation surrounding that other stuff, we’d rather confirm it’s not that."
Letang last played on Feb 21 where he skated 28:49 in a win against Carolina. He didn't seem to suffer any major damage but missed practice on 2/22 and the following day on 2/23 Sullivan announced that Letang had an upper body injury and was day-to-day.
That prognosis seemed minor since Letang practiced with the team at Heinz Field on 2/24 and insta'd a picture of it.
Letang was scratched though for that game on Feb 25 and was still "day-to-day". That would change though when Letang was left in Pittsburgh when the team went on a road-trip and then on March 1 Sullivan announced that the star defenseman was no longer day-to-day and dealing with a more complicated injury.
So what does that mean? Who knows. Speculation abounds about a possible shoulder injury, or even a hernia (how the abdomen/groin area would be upper body is another issues), but at least now we can rule out a concussion or stranger issue from health problems of the past.
Even though we don't know exactly what IS wrong with Letang, perhaps it's more important to know he hasn't suffered another concussion and (hopefully) has a known timeline for a return. The Penguins may not be letting us into what that timeline is, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. NHL teams aren't always forthcoming with information, the team hasn't formally given an exact injury date for Bryan Rust or said what his injury is, even though rumored timelines have him coming back around the time of the playoffs after hurting something in the hand/wrist area on 2/9.
Letang last played 2 weeks ago, and it's just a little less than 5 weeks until the playoffs. Hopefully that is enough time for him to rest and rehab his injury, whatever it is, being as the team's chances in the post-season are largely dependent on him playing and playing at a very high level like he did last spring.
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