For maybe the final time in his National Hockey League career, Marc-Andre Fleury was in town as his Minnesota Wild took on the Pittsburgh Penguins.
However, he spent his last trip to his draft city on the bench.
In the afternoon before the game, Wild head coach John Hynes announced that Fleury would not be playing in this game. Instead, Filip Gustavsson, a former Pens draft pick himself, would get the start in Pittsburgh, and Fleury would start for Minnesota the following night in Boston.
Having some extra time without having to worry about tonight’s game, Fleury took the opportunity to prank his former Pittsburgh teammates one last time. He switched out Kris Letang’s helmets so that Letang would have the white helmet (for away games) instead of his home black helmet ahead of warmups.
As for the game itself, the Penguins got out to an excellent early start. Reilly Smith struck first for Pittsburgh, netting a backhand shot up and over Gustavsson from up close to put the Pens on the board.
Valtteri Puustinen does an excellent job of disrupting the play behind the net for Minnesota, and then getting just enough of the puck to poke it to Smith, who does the rest.
This is where the first chants started at PPG Paints Arena. Fans grew louder and louder as they shouted “We want Fleury!”
Those chants would continue after every Penguins goal, including after Jake Guentzel tipped an Erik Karlsson bomb from the point to make it a 2-0 game. That goal, coming on the power play, was the first of two goals scored on the man advantage tonight by the Pens.
Just a few minutes later, Pittsburgh would add another. Puustinen makes a beautiful pass to Evgeni Malkin, who pots it in for his team’s third of the night.
For Puustinen, it was his second assist of the night, marking his first multi-point game in the NHL for the rookie.
But the win tonight was not obtained without hardship.
The Penguins’ ability to dominate the game had faded, and the Wild were able to capitalize on some opportunities they found.
Towards the end of the second period, Minnesota’s Ryan Hartman gets one past Pens goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic. Two and a half minutes later, Jake Middleton notched another for the Wild, who all the sudden had made this quite the game.
Coming out of the second intermission, that same theme continued, and Vinni Letteri successfully deflected one in past Nedeljkovic to tie the game at 3-3.
However, just a few seconds later, the Penguins get a power play opportunity, and they cash in again.
Sidney Crosby, in front of the net, slides the puck in underneath Gustavsson to put Pittsburgh back on top.
From there, the Penguins were able to dictate the pace of play and shut down Minnesota’s attempts to climb back into the game once again.
Despite having three goals against, Alex Nedeljkovic made excellent save after excellent save to keep the Penguins alive. He especially locked things down in the third period after Pittsburgh reclaimed the lead.
In the dying seconds of the game, Nedeljkovic had the puck on his stick, and he attempted to score the second goalie goal for the Penguins this season. Nedeljkovic actually got off a really good shot, and had the shot had a clean path to the net, it very well could have gone in.
Unfortunately, Minnesota’s Matthew Boldy got a piece of it in mid-air to knock it off its path.
Nedeljkovic had previously scored a goalie goal during a conditioning stint in the American Hockey League earlier this season…and if it hadn’t been for Boldy, he would have had one in the NHL too.
In any sense, the Pens win 4-3. The power play continues to click, which is such a beautiful sight to see after watching them go an entire month without scoring a power play goal.
The blown 3-0 lead was deeply concerning, but their response to it and their ability to regain the lead was something positive.
If this truly was Fleury’s last time in Pittsburgh (as an NHLer, anyways), it is somewhat sad that the Wild opted not to play him.
But I will offer up this: maybe it’s better that we got to bid him farewell from his comfortable seat on the bench. Seeing him get lit up in his final time in Pittsburgh (as has happened several times before) would have just felt wrong.
(Featured photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images)
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