New Article on Kris; talks about his defensive pairing with Simon Depres

Penguins’ Simon Despres-Kris Letang pairing benefits both

Letang certainly seems to enjoy working with Despres.

“It went pretty well,” Letang said. “We came out of our zone pretty well with the puck on our stick. Offensively, we created a lot of scoring chances. We were on the ice for a lot of scoring chances. It was fun to experience that with him. We’ve played in the past together, but never on a consistent basis or for a full game. It was pretty good.”

With Despres emerging as one of the Penguins’ most physical players — he leads the team with 146 hits — his presence on the top pairing can spare the valuable Letang some abuse.

“As soon as he gets involved physically, he can separate the puck from [an opponent],” Letang said. “It allows me to get open. It allows me to be ready to go on the attack.”

“You’re not going to take the physical play out of Kris Letang because he’s a high-competitive guy,” Agnew said. “He gets involved physically.

“But with the number of minutes that he plays, we’ve got to be careful with how hard those minutes are from a physical standpoint and probably [Despres] being out there with him does alleviate a little bit of that because he can hang onto the puck and protect it and certainly take away some of the pressure on the forecheck that other teams may get on us.”

Regardless of injuries or any other factors, Despres is hopeful he can remain with Letang.

“I’ll play with anyone,” Despres said. “But yeah, I’d love to play with ‘Tanger’ for sure.” [ Read more at the source ]