The Minnesota Wild have put up a 5-1-1 record since kicking off the season 0-3. After the first three games of the season, many suggested that it might be time for this club to start exploring the possibility of finding another goaltender. Marc-Andre Fleury managed to cough up 11 goals in just 79 minutes of gameplay at the beginning of the season, but it appears that he’s managed to turn the tide.
To be fair, the goaltending wasn’t the only reason for the Wild’s slow regular-season start. The defensive play was lackluster, to say the least. There didn’t appear to be much urgency on the puck, and the Wild found themselves trapped in their own zone a lot of the time. However, this has all changed over the course of the previous seven games. Fleury’s seeing his save percentage crawl back up, and the club’s all-around defensive play is just a lot of fun to watch.
It’s uncertain whether the Wild are experiencing a mere swing of the competitive pendulum or if it’s that they’ve really found their game. Either way, it’s going to come back to the club’s goaltending.
The Case for Fleury
When Fleury was traded from Chicago to Minnesota for a conditional second-round pick, there was a certain level of excitement. The Wild have never really had a top-talent goaltender, and with elite offensive talent in Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello, it was time to seriously consider bolstering the man between the pipes. After suffering through a mediocre season in Chicago, Fleury was an attractive option.
An Attractive Track Record
Fleury has a decorated career, winning three Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009, 2016, and 2017. Not only this, but he took the Vegas Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season, eventually falling to the Washington Capitals. His resumé had to have been attractive to a club that hasn’t had the best of luck in the postseason. At 37 years of age, it’s obvious that the Wild’s front office doesn’t see Fleury as a long-term solution to the club’s ailments in net, but he could certainly stem the bleeding.
Fleury played a total of 11 games with the Wild at the end of last season, putting up a 9-2 record and a .910 save percentage. There’s nothing too shabby about that, but it’s this season that he’ll have the opportunity to go the distance with his new club. He clearly has the offensive manpower playing in front of him, but the question is, how many more miles does Fleury have left in the tank? Entering the winter of his long hockey career, this is a serious question to consider.
High Hopes for Fleury
If Fleury were to lead the Minnesota Wild to their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, he would be one of the oldest goaltenders to ever do so. The question, though, is whether Fleury is really the guy the franchise should be leaning on. If the start of this season is anything to go on, the answer would have to be a resounding no. Not only was he not performing in the way that was expected of him, but the Wild could’ve also been giving Filip Gustavsson a bit more playing time.
In just the first three games of the 2022-23 season, Fleury temporarily held an abysmal .776 save percentage, allowing 11 goals over the course of just 79 minutes. If Fleury’s name didn’t precede him, a goaltender with this kind of performance would likely have been canned. There would’ve been no reason to keep a goaltender that performed this poorly at that age. But it didn’t appear that head coach Dean Evason believed Fleury’s subpar play was anything more than just a bad stretch of games. And it appears Evason was correct…maybe.
It appears that Fleury has started to pick things up. As of right now, he’s sitting with a .894 save percentage, with just over three goals per game. These numbers are far below his career average, but this is encouraging evidence that the three-time Stanley Cup champion has effectively left those first three games of the season in the rearview mirror. After the Wild’s 3-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Oct. 25, Jake Middleton took note of Fleury’s attitude, saying that “I can hear him when he’s going cross-crease making a save, he’s giving a little hoot,” and that it’s “a great feeling” (from ‘Wild’s Marc-Andre Fleury showing his old swagger after rough start to 2022-23,’ The Athletic, Oct. 27, 2022).
If Fleury can stay healthy, there’s a significant chance that he could be the one to lead the Minnesota club to its first playoff series win since the 2014-15 season.
