Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury (29) makes a glove save in the second period of a game against the San Jose Sharks at T-Mobile Arena Wednesday, March 17, 2021. Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Zach Whitecloud (2) is at left.
Thursday, March 18, 2021 | 2 a.m.
Marc-André Fleury has been a major factor in the Vegas Golden Knights’ success through the first two months of the season, helping carry the team to a first-place start through 26 games in the NHL’s realigned West Division.
When fellow goaltender Robin Lehner went down with an unspecified injury last month, the onus fell on Fleury to play a lion’s share of the games. Many expected him to succeed, but few could have predicted he’d succeed on this level.
The 36-year-old has thrust himself into the conversation for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goalie, one award Fleury hasn’t captured during his storied, 17-year NHL career. He has started 20 of the Golden Knights’ first 26 games, winning 15 of them behind a .936 save percentage and 1.77 goals against average—one of the best stretches of his career.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Fleury essentially lost the job last summer, when Lehner started 16 of the Knights’ 20 playoff games and then signed a five-year extension, becoming Vegas’ presumed goalie of the future and present. Fleury’s days in Vegas looked numbered during an offseason filled with trade rumors—and a perception that his best days were behind him. He has responded by looking perhaps better than he ever has.
“I feel like I came into this season and put all that stuff behind me and I just played my best,” Fleury says. “I know I don’t have that much time left, and I just wanted to make sure I do my best to enjoy it and be helpful to my team.”
Last season was tough on Fleury for a number of reasons. He started off strong as one of the best goalies in the league, but then tragedy struck when his father died from lung cancer in November 2019.
Fleury posted an emotional win against Chicago in his first game back from a short leave but plummeted from there, finishing the season with a .905 save percentage, his lowest in a decade. That surely informed the Golden Knights’ decision to acquire Lehner at the trade deadline, and for the rest of the regular season, the two goalies split time before Lehner assumed the starter’s role in the playoffs.
The pair returned to splitting duties for the first 10 games this season before Lehner’s injury put Fleury back in the spotlight. And he has been nearly unbeatable ever since—at least on the ice.
Fleury and the Golden Knights received a major scare on March 11, when he tested positive for COVID-19. A day later, the entire organization exhaled when it was determined to be a false positive, allowing Fleury to return without missing any games, maintaining his momentum.
If he can carry his current save percentage through the full season, it will mark the lowest of a career likely to propel him into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
“It’s pretty remarkable,” says Vegas forward Reilly Smith, a four-year teammate of Fleury’s. “I think it shows the character he has. From Day 1 that I’ve been able to play with him, he shows up to the rink every day with a big smile on his face, happy to be there.”
So, is this the best Fleury has ever looked? It’s close, even though he has put together several terrific runs over the years.
During a 10-game stretch in 2012-13 with the Pittsburgh Penguins, for example, Fleury posted a .950 save percentage. In 2007-08, it was .944 during his last 21 games, though he missed a large portion of the season with injury. Similarly, he started his Golden Knights tenure with a .946 save percentage in 16 games before missing a month with injury.
Even if this year’s number—again, .936 at press time—isn’t quite as elevated, considering the offseason circumstances and in-season durability demands, there’s a good case to be made that this is the best Fleury has ever looked.
Then again, legends are made in the playoffs, and Fleury’s season will ultimately be judged on how he performs with stakes at their highest. And don’t doubt his postseason odds—he has amassed a long track record of success there, too.
Two playoff runs, in particular, have defined Fleury’s greatness to this point. The first came in 2008, a year before his famous buzzer-beating save on Nicklas Lidstrom to win the Penguins the Cup. Pittsburgh lost to Detroit in the ’08 Stanley Cup Final but got there on Fleury’s back. The then-23-year-old put up a .938 save percentage in the Eastern Conference playoffs and tallied more shutouts (3) than losses (2). He was solid in the final with a .923 save percentage, but the Red Wings’ dominance proved too much to overcome.
A decade later, Fleury turned in a performance Golden Knights fans will never forget, going 12-3 against LA, San Jose and Winnipeg in his initial postseason with Vegas, posting a .947 save percentage, four shutouts and less than two goals per game.
Fleury was the best player on the ice almost every night, carrying the Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Final. It was objectively the most spectacular run of his career.
He still has work to do to separate this as his best-ever season, but he should at least get the opportunity. The Golden Knights are the current Stanley Cup co-favorites (alongside Tampa Bay and Colorado), and sit atop the West Division.
That positioning is in large part a testament to Fleury, both his ability to overcome adversity and to continue playing near his peak late into his career.
This story originally appeared in Las Vegas Weekly
