Fleury comes up big for Wild in possible final game vs. Penguins

ST. PAUL, Minn -- Marc-Andre Fleury has now skated in 1,009 games in his NHL career, and recently surpassed Patrick Roy for the second-most wins by any goaltender in the league's history. His 553rd career win, a 3-2 win over the Penguins here at the Wild's Xcel Center on Friday night, might very well have been his final game against his former team.

If this was Fleury's last game facing the Penguins, he certainly made the most of it.

It was an emotional night for Fleury, who was honored before the game with a ceremony celebrating both his 1,000th game and his record-breaking 552nd career win. It was a top-notch production from the Wild, down to the tiniest of details. Fleury's teammates and coaches wore flower pins on their lapels as they showed up to the arena in recognition of his nickname, and commissioned large floral arrangements in the shapes of the numbers 1,000 and 552. The Minnesota Wild Foundation made a $5,000 donation to the charity of Fleury's choice, the American Indian Family Center. Fleury, whose wife is indigenous, not only matched the donation -- he doubled it. He and his family donated $10,000 of their own.

It was the Wild's tribute video that was the highlight of the night, featuring clips from Fleury's time in Pittsburgh, Vegas, Chicago and Minnesota, with words of congratulations from his teammates from those stops:

The best words in the video came at the very end, from Fleury's three children -- 10-year-old Estelle, eight-year-old Scarlett, and four-year-old James: 

Fleury's bouquet of little "Flowers" made an appearance in the Minnesota locker room pregame as well to read off the starting lineup. In net, they announced "No. 29, the best dad ever":

"That's what gets me, I think," an emotional Fleury said after the game. "I don't know why. The kids do it to me. I hope to be a good father for them, a good role model. Hopefully they can remember me playing hockey and people cheering for me, for my team, for our name. It means a lot. Soon I'll be on the couch not doing much, right? Hopefully they can remember this time when I played hockey."

It's not clear how soon that "soon" will be. 

Fleury, 39, is a free agent at the end of this season and has been non-committal on his future. He said during training camp in September that he would "give myself the season. See how it goes, see how I feel physically, mentally, and if I still can stop the puck and just make a decision at the end."

Fleury has played pretty well this season, albeit in more of a backup role. He has a 9-9-3 record, a 2.91 goals-against average, a .900 save percentage and one shutout backstopping a .500 Wild team. But on this night, Fleury looked like vintage Fleury, especially when it mattered the most.

Fleury stopped 34 of the Penguins' 36 shots, including 14 in the third period alone. The Wild were clinging onto a one-goal lead when Jonas Brodin high-sticked Jake Guentzel to give the Penguins a power play. The Penguins put Alex Nedeljkovic on the bench for a 6-on-4 advantage and peppered Fleury with shots, to no avail.

"He made some big saves," Sidney Crosby said of Fleury. "Obviously, we pushed pretty hard there late. You always know that he's going to compete and battle."

Fleury called that stretch a "big challenge" for him.

"They have so many skilled forwards and D," said Fleury. "You know you're going to have to battle. ... I just battled through it and tried to keep it out."

The only shots to solve Fleury came courtesy of a few of his former teammates. The first came from an old Vegas teammate in Reilly Smith, set up by another former teammate in Evgeni Malkin with a fantastic no-look pass:

Crosby scored the other goal on Fleury, beating him on the power play with a one-kneed redirection of an Erik Karlsson pass:

It was only the second time that Crosby had ever scored on Fleury in their sixth meeting as opponents.

"He had a good celebration too," Fleury said, shaking his head. "Aaaaghh."

Fleury looks like he could keep playing beyond this season. But even if he does play another year or couple, there's no guarantee that he'll ever face the Penguins again, especially when Filip Gustavsson is the one getting most of the starts, like he did in Pittsburgh back in December.

Malkin said that he hopes to get the opportunity to play Fleury a few more times. When I spoke with Malkin after the game, I asked if it's emotional for him going up against Fleury, even though he's been gone for nearly seven years.

"Oh, 100%," Malkin said. "He's exciting. Every time we shoot, he talks to you (laughs). It's like always. We know how he played. Congrats to him. It's a great milestone for him, I'm so glad I played with him a long time. He's my friend. For a goalie to play 1,000 games? That's amazing. I think it was an emotional night for the whole city."

The Penguins presented Fleury with a gift of their own that morning, a beautiful painting by local artist Cody Sabol that included highlights from Fleury's 1,000-plus games, but mostly his time in Pittsburgh.

"The old times, you know?" Fleury said to Crosby while admiring a portion of the painting of the two together. 

Kris Letang joined the two in the room -- Malkin was on the ice for the optional morning skate at the time -- as they reminisced about their early years together and marveled at Fleury's milestones.

Crosby switched to speaking French before the trio departed, telling Fleury, "Bonne chance à soir. Amuse-toi." -- "Good luck tonight. Have fun."

The Penguins may not have had much fun in the game, but Fleury certainly did. If this was his last game sharing the ice with the Penguins, he's closing that chapter on a high note.

MINNESOTA WILD

Marc-Andre Fleury with his children in the Wild's locker room before Friday's game.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE THREE STARS

As selected at Xcel Energy Center:

1. Marc-Andre Fleury, Wild G
2. Jonas Brodin, Wild D
3. Matt Boldy, Wild LW

THE IN-GAME INJURIES

• Penguins: None

• Wild: None

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Reilly Smith - Evgeni Malkin - Drew O'Connor
Rickard Rakell - Lars Eller - Jesse Puljujarvi
Jansen Harkins - Colin White - Jeff Carter

Marcus Pettersson - Kris Letang
Ryan Graves - Erik Karlsson
P.O Joseph - Chad Ruhwedel

And for John Hynes' Wild:

Kirill Kaprizov - Joel Eriksson Ek - Matt Boldy
Marcus Johansson - Marco Rossi - Mats Zuccarello
Marcus Foligno - Ryan Hartman - Freddy Gaudreau
Brandon Duhaime - Jacob Lucchini - Vinni Lettieri

Jake Middleton - Brock Faber
Jonas Brodin - Zach Bogosian
Jon Merrill - Dakota Mermis

THE SCHEDULE

The Penguins left for Winnipeg, Manitoba after the game and will play the Jets there Saturday at 7:08 p.m. Eastern.

THE FEED

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