Seven years later, Letang is now a father who has overcome a litany of injuries, like every other member of that young core he thought would lead the Penguins to multiple Stanley Cup championships by now.
He was finally able to bring the Stanley Cup back home again on Friday, drawing a crowd of thousands to this Montreal suburb where Letang grew up and learned to play hockey. The journey, and especially the detours in that journey, made the visit that much more special.
"We put a lot of pressure on ourselves as a team," Letang said. "When you look at the players in our lineup, you tell yourself you have a chance to win. This is fun, but I'd say we could have won it more often if we had the right mindset. We were still young, but it's fun to be a part of this group.
"We made the final when I was 20 and I was 21 when we won the Stanley Cup. You're young mentally as a professional at that point, you're still learning. It's like when you take a 3-0 lead in a game, you sit on it a little bit. It's a bit of a natural reaction.
"So you tell yourself, 'Well, we have Crosby, Malkin, we should make the final every year.' But it doesn't work like that, and that's not what happened. So having gone through the injuries that Sid had, Malkin, Fleury, my concussions, my stroke, you see what it takes to win a second one. We realize it now, and I think we're better prepared to win another one."
Letang had a stroke in January 2014 and has sustained two concussions since then, but completed the best season of his career with 67 points (16 goals, 51 assists) in 71 games. He had three goals and 12 assists in 23 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including getting a point on all four game-winning goals in the Final against the San Jose Sharks.
"With the medical file I've built up over the last seven years, I enjoyed proving to people that I was able to reach another level," Letang said. "The Cup is the reward for that."
Letang said his day with the Cup was on June 12, when he had a chance to raise it at SAP Center after the Penguins defeated the Sharks in Game 6 of the Final. Friday was a day for his family, most notably his 3-year-old son Alexander, who ate his morning cereal and croissants out of the Cup. But Letang had to give him the bad news that daddy won't have the Cup forever.