Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Robin Lehner (90) makes a save during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Buffalo Sabres at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas Friday, Feb. 28, 2020.
Published Saturday, Oct. 3, 2020 | 8:02 a.m.
Updated Saturday, Oct. 3, 2020 | 1:41 p.m.
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Robin Lehner joked during the playoffs after making a diving acrobatic save that, “big man can move when we wants to.”
Big man has done a lot of moving over the last few years. Now he no longer has to.
Lehner signed a five-year extension with a $5 million annual cap hit on Saturday, cementing him as Vegas’ goalie of the present and the future. And after three straight offseasons of signing one-year deals with different teams, Lehner finally has the stability he’s wanted.
“I have a 5-year-old, almost 6-year-old son that has five different hockey jerseys,” Lehner said. “We live a privileged life, but you want to give your family stability as well and I couldn’t find a better opportunity and a better setting than here in Vegas.”
It’s been a long road for Lehner. His trade to the Golden Knights in February marked his fourth team in three seasons and fifth overall, despite posting elite numbers. Among goalies who have played as many games as he has in the past four seasons, Andrei Vasilevskiy is the only goalie to best Lehner’s .919 save percentage. He leads the NHL with 56.8 goals saved above average in that span.
And yet it’s been one-year deal after one-year deal. He’s played with Ottawa, Buffalo, the Islanders, Chicago and Vegas in his career, but knows now he will be a Golden Knight for the next half-decade.
“It’s something I’ve fought for and for different reasons it’s taken its time and now it’s here,” Lehner said. “It’s a very good day for us.”
While Lehner’s future is clear, his goaltending counterpart’s is not. Marc-Andre Fleury has been the face of the Golden Knights since his arrival at the expansion draft and has been the starting goalie for three years, up until Lehner supplanted him during the postseason.
Fleury has a $7 million cap hit for the next two seasons, and combined with Lehner gives the Golden Knights $12 million devoted to two goalies. Only the Canadiens have more cap space tied up to the position. Vegas is now the only team currently above the cap’s upper limit and still needing to sign Nick Cousins, Chandler Stephenson and others.
While it’s an option to retain Fleury, it does not appear to be a realistic one. The next big move on the Golden Knights’ agenda appears to be a trade or buyout of the franchise icon, even if general manager Kelly McCrimmon didn’t explicitly say so.
“We have a ton of respect for Marc-Andre Fleury. We will try to make good decisions here as we move along,” McCrimmon said. “But at the same time, if you don't make the hard decisions sometimes, you're not doing your job as well as you should be. What's easiest isn't always what is right. That's just an unfortunate part of being a manager of a professional sports team. That's the responsibility that you carry.”
Reading between the lines is clear what is coming next. The Golden Knights will say farewell to Fleury and turn the net over to Lehner on a full-time basis. It would be the first time since Lehner was with the Sabres that he was the clear-cut No. 1 goalie and he’s a different player than when he was in Buffalo.
“I didn’t live a good life in Buffalo,” Lehner said. “I got the help that I needed and I've been open about a lot of the things in my life. It's been a hell of a journey."
His journey could be worthy of a movie one day. He started his hockey career in his native Sweden before making the jump to North America in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, to play for the Greyhounds in Canada’s top junior league. He made his NHL debut with Ottawa at 19 in 2010 and was traded to Buffalo in 2015 after 86 games in five years.
He established himself in Buffalo, posting a .916 save percentage across three seasons. But it’s also where his life took a turn. In March 2018 while playing with the Sabres, Lehner checked into a treatment facility in Arizona for substance abuse and trauma, a story he detailed at length later that year on The Athletic. It was there he got not just his career, but his life back in the right direction.
He signed a one-year deal with the Islanders as a free agent that offseason and it was the hockey world started to take notice of his on-ice prowess, taking New York to the playoffs and finishing third in the Vezina voting. He played in only 48 games though, splitting time with Thomas Greiss throughout the regular season, though Lehner started all eight postseason games.
But Lehner and the Islanders could not work out an agreement for last season and he delved back to free agency to land with Chicago on his third one-year deal in as many summers. Lehner’s play didn’t drop even moving from the defensive system of the Islanders to the free-wheeling style of the Blackhawks, and remained one of the bets goalies in the league.
Yet it wasn’t working there either. He was again sharing the net, this time with longtime incumbent Corey Crawford. As Chicago’s playoff hopes dimmed, the Blackhawks dealt him to Vegas at the trade deadline. Ironically, the COVID-19 pandemic expanded the postseason and Chicago did make it, only to lose to Lehner and the Golden Knights in five games.
That brings us to Saturday. It had been rumored for a while, but Lehner and the Golden Knights inked the five-year extension to secure for Lehner, the first true security he’s ever had, and for the Golden Knights, the answer to the question of who succeeds Fleury as the starting netminder.
Many players will talk about their journey or the obstacles they’ve overcome, and every player fights his own battles. Some we know about, some we don’t. But it’s clear that Lehner’s story was never guaranteed to have a happy ending. He fought every day against his own inner demons, against people telling him he couldn’t do this, against everything it felt to earn the contract he signed.
For the first time since before he could become a free agent, Lehner doesn’t have to worry about what happens after next season. He knows he’ll be a Golden Knights. All that’s left to worry about is playing hockey.
“The past has been the past but the future is good,” Lehner said. “There’s always a risk-reward, but I’ve shown the reward is worth the risk.”
