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Marc-Andre Fleury's Playoff Brilliance Was Never Supposed to Happen

It took a Matt Murray injury at the start of the playoffs for the veteran Fleury to get his chance. If this is his last run with the Penguins, he's going out with a bang.
Photo by Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

With Sidney Crosby and Conor Sheary out for an unknown period of time with a pair of concussions, and All-Star defenceman Kris Letang out for the year, too, Marc-Andre Fleury has shouldered the load and has the Pittsburgh Penguins one win away from the second round.

For the Penguins and their world-class goalie tandem, it wasn't supposed to be like this.

Last spring, Matt Murray backstopped Pittsburgh to its fourth Stanley Cup in franchise history, earning 15 of the team's 16 postseason wins while Fleury looked on as a rookie stole the net he owned for the better part of a decade. Fleury was rolling into the 2016 playoffs, too, winning eight of his previous nine games and posting the best save percentage (.921) and goals against average (2.29) of his career, before suffering his second concussion of the season on March 31 against Nashville, less than two weeks before the start of the playoffs.

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The injury effectively ended Fleury's season (he started one game against Tampa Bay in the third round) and forced the 31-year-old to watch his teammates battle for, and win, a Cup from the cozy confines of the bench. That changing of the guard, the passing of the torch from decade-long starter to up-and-coming rookie was supposed to signify the beginning of the end for Fleury in Pittsburgh. With Vegas granted a franchise and Fleury seen as a great fit in Sin City, among many other clubs, it was only a matter of time before Fleury would be dealt somewhere so the team could protect its new, younger franchise goalie from expansion draft exposure.

Not so fast. Partially by choice, and partially by necessity, general manager Jim Rutherford decided not to move Fleury (it should be noted he has a no-trade clause in his contract, but those are often easily worked out) a couple different times, most notably this past summer and at the trade deadline in March. Despite wide speculation, Fleury remained a Penguin, and to say that the non-move paid off for the club would be a giant understatement.

A broken hand in the 2016 World Cup of Hockey forced Murray to the sidelines to start his 'second' rookie season, and Fleury was there to hold down the fort as he posted a 6-2-2 record while starting 10 of the Penguins' first 11 games of the 2016-17 campaign.Fleury started another 24 games after Murray's return in what turned into a platoon situation, but the net was still Murray's going into the first round of the postseason, until he suffered a lower-body injury during Game 1 warmups against Columbus. A year after the concussion cost him his playoff opportunity, Fleury is on the other end of an injury leading to a last-minute goaltending switch in Pittsburgh.

Sid approves. Photo by Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

As he's always done, Fleury has stepped up for his teammates and delivered—making the most saves in the playoffs so far (314) while posting the third-best save percentage (.935) and a 7-2 record through Pittsburgh's first nine games versus the Blue Jackets and Capitals. He's been simply unreal, stopping over 30 shots in eight of the nine games including a 49-save effort to close out Columbus in Game 5, and a 36-stop performance on Wednesday as the Pens took a stranglehold lead over Washington without the world's best player in their lineup.

One of two goalies to ever be drafted with the first overall pick, the 2003 No. 1 selection is an O.G. in Pittsburgh. He was there before Crosby, before other all-world Pens forward Evgeni Malkin, before the Penguins were relevant again, and even before the team started dusting the Capitals on a semi-regular basis. He backstopped Pittsburgh to its third Stanley Cup in 2008-09, and has been there for the good and bad of every Penguins playoff run since he was drafted.

Fleury's going all out in what appears to be his last shot in Pittsburgh. Then again, we've heard that before.