EDMONTON, Alberta -- There were times, a mere few months back, when Kris Letang wanted more than ever in his life to get away from the rink. To just go home.
Couldn't believe my ears when it came out, but I heard it.
This was late Tuesday night way up here in the NHL's northernmost outpost and, for full context, so much else that had just transpired to capture the attention of not only this capacity crowd but, really, the whole hockey world: Sidney Crosby had just upstaged Connor McDavid. And he did so in overtime, with nothing less than one of the most mind-blowing goals of a living legend's career:
It's beautiful stuff.
But once that buzz passes, assuming it does, try to get a grip on this: The best player in this game, a 6-5 victory for the Penguins over the Oilers, wasn't Crosby or McDavid. Nor was it Patric Hornqvist or Jamie Oleksiak, each of whom matched Crosby's two-goal output.
Nope. It was the same guy it's been pretty much every one of these seven games to date.
"He's playing at a level that I don't think he's done consistently before. Not like this," Sergei Gonchar was telling me afterward. And he was speaking, of course, of Letang. "I think we've seen his talent, obviously, through the years. He's always had the natural abilities with the best defensemen in the league, right there in the top. But because of injuries or whatever, he wasn't at that level consistently. Now ..."
Bit of a pause.
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