Saturday night was truly a one-of-a-kind moment. The kind of night that I’m honestly not sure I can put into words. But, that’s kind of what I do here, so, I’m going to try my best.
Lines formed hours before the 5:30pm door open time. The lines and pandemonium inside the building’s PensGear store for limited edition Fleury merch was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The amount of juice and electricity from the crowd was perhaps the largest burst of energy the Penguins will have all year.
All for a game that doesn’t count in the standings and doesn’t matter statistically. Oh, but it was anything besides your typical preseason game. Saturday night was all about Marc-Andre Fleury.
The man of the hour made an appearance during warmups, taking shots to cheers from the crowd, who was still filing in from the lengthy lines outside. If you paid closed your eyes during warmups, you could tell whenever Fleury was occupying the net simply by the change in crowd noise.
After signing a professional try out with the Penguins, where he was drafted first overall in 2003 and spent over a decade playing for, Fleury added one final stop on a retirement tour that kicked off last season.
Fleury, declaring last season his final in the NHL, made his way across the league, saying goodbye as he hit each stop on the league circuit. When Fleury was back in Pittsburgh as the Minnesota Wild visited town, Penguins fans found themselves cheering on the opposing goaltender more than their own.
No one other than him could have elicited that reaction from a Pittsburgh crowd.
But his story deserved an encore. One final night to celebrate in the place where it all began. It was all that and then some.
Even with prospect goaltender Sergei Murashov taking to the net for the first two periods of the game, there was still a certain buzz in the building, a buzz that’s understandably been lacking over the last few seasons.
Murashov did his best to keep the fans entertained for the first two periods, understanding he was not the man that they paid big money to come see.
The Russian netminder, to his credit, played pretty well, making 12 saves on 13 shots. Some questionable defense forced the 21-year-old to step up and make some key saves, which earned some loud cheers from the fans watching.
The forecheck for the Penguins eventually did wake up. Sidney Crosby scored a classic Sid goal to tie the game early in the second period, and Rickard Rakell was able to bang one in on the power play, with just 1.6 seconds left to go in the frame, giving the Penguins a lead heading into the second intermission.
Then, at long last, Fleury skated onto the ice for the third period and took over the crease for the Penguins, embarking on one last journey in black and yellow. Chants of “Fleury! Fleury! Fleury!” and “One More Year!” dominated the period as Fleury turned back the clock.
Fleury looked as sharp as ever, pitching a shutout period behind a Penguins team that did their best to make plays in front of him. Fleury made eight saves on as many shots, and looked on as his team tacked on two more goals before the night was over.
Ville Koivunen found himself at the right place at the right time to put home the loose change and extend the lead to two. Then, as Columbus pulled their goalie coming out of the last tv timeout, Rakell had the puck and was able to drive it in for the empty net goal.
I’ll be honest, right before that face off, I saw Crosby, Rakell, Kris Letang, and others all huddling up, and I was thinking…ok, hoping, that they were scheming a way to get Fleury the puck and a chance to go for the empty netter himself.
Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, and the Penguins cruised to a 4-1 win.
In the ensuing shootout, which was slated to happen no matter the final score, Fleury saved two out of three before Luca Del Bel Belluz snuck one past him in the final round. Fans were on their feet for every moment of it.
With the amount of loyalty Penguins fans showed Fleury on this night, I guarantee you some of them will remember that name down the road and hold a little vendetta against him. Del Bel Belluz, who also had the lone Blue Jackets goal in regulation against Murashov, was the victim of some boos after the goal.
However, for as fun as the third period and shootout was, the best moment might have been his postgame interview afterwards. Fleury, rightly named the first star of the game, looked a little emotional as he did one last postgame interview on the ice.
Listen, I’ve had the privilege of being at home openers, rivalry games, and Stanley Cup Playoff affairs over my years as a hockey fan. But through all of those games, Saturday night was the only time, ever, I could say that the crowd was as its strongest at the end of the game.
Even in a postseason atmosphere, fans start to head out for the exits as the final minutes tick off the clock, whether the team is winning or losing. That’s not a judgement of fans who do, it’s merely an accurate statement about what happens in Pittsburgh, and many other markets.
But no one, and I mean no one, left this game early.
No one left before the third period. No one left before the pre-planned shootout. And no one left until the postgame interviews were over, and the crowd had the chance to roar for the man they’ve endearingly called Flower one last time.
We all were there for one reason, and we weren’t going anywhere until we watched Fleury walk off into the sunset, officially.
It’s truly a testament to the type of person that Fleury is, on and off the ice. We will never see another athlete, person, or personality capture the heart of this city the way he did when he played here. And, in a way, his absence from the team has only made his bond with the fans stronger over the years.
It had been eight years and over 3,000 days since Fleury had suited up in Penguins gear. Spiritually, his run with the team should have never ended, and in hindsight, the Penguins made the wrong choice in picking the guy who had just won back-to-back Stanley Cups as a rookie.
Last night, that span felt like a dream, like Fleury had never left at all.
I don’t know if you get that kind of emotion, energy, and celebration if Fleury spends his entire career as a Penguin. We’ll never know, and that’s ok. But, for one night, all that time he was away from Pittsburgh made his homecoming all the more of a ceremony.
Fifth Avenue Sports 
Leave a comment