It certainly doesn't feel like it, but the best goalie in Penguins history is now in his sixth season away from the team.
In an arguably poetic chain of events, Marc-Andre Fleury will have a chance to throw a giant wrench in his former club's postseason aspirations when he starts in goal for the visiting Wild on Thursday night here at PPG Paints Arena.
The Penguins can't be officially eliminated from postseason contention with a loss to the Wild, but failing to emerge with two standings points could spell the end of the road.
Both the Panthers and Islanders occupy the Eastern Conference's wild-card spots with 87 points in 78 games. The Penguins lag behind them by a lone point with the same number of games played. Their chances of making the big dance will see a giant swing in either direction after playing the Wild. A win in regulation will put them at a 56.9% probability to qualify for the postseason, while a regulation loss would drop that figure all the way down to 21.2%, according to MoneyPuck.
Fleury, who has a 24-14-4 record this season with a .910 save percentage, 2.82 goals against average and 3.5 goals saved above expected based on the quality of chances he's faced, will be making his eighth career start against the Penguins.
In his first seven starts against them (five with the Golden Knights, two with the Blackhawks), Fleury hasn't exactly been a brick wall, posting a .904 save percentage and allowing over a goal more than expected. He allowed three goals once, four goals twice, and five goals once. He did, however, shut them out in Oct. of 2019.
"He's a great goaltender," Kris Letang said following the Penguins' morning skate. "Probably top five of all time."
Mike Sullivan is well aware of what Fleury means to Pittsburgh and several players in the Penguins' locker room, but once game time rolls around, it's business as usual.
"Obviously some of our players have great friendships with Flower," Sullivan said. "He means a lot to this city for everything that he accomplished when he was here. He was a great teammate with these guys. I know they've been great friendships, and those things will never change. I think that's one of the great things about our game. But when the puck drops at 7 o'clock, these guys are fierce competitors and they want to win, and they want to win for their respective teams, and that'll never change."
MORE FROM THE SKATE
• The Penguins had a pretty bizarre personnel group during their morning skate Thursday, especially considering they did not hit the ice Wednesday. The only forwards to participate were Danton Heinen, Drew O'Connor and Nick Bonino. The rest of the participants were defensemen, as well as both netminders: Letang, Jeff Petry, P.O Joseph, Jan Rutta, Chad Ruhwedel, Mark Friedman, Marcus Pettersson, Dmitry Kulikov, Tristan Jarry, Casey DeSmith.
• Rutta will be a game-time decision. He last played on March 16 against the Rangers. He was never placed on injured reserve for this injury, so no roster transactions are required for him to play.
• Alex Nylander has been recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on an emergency basis once again. That means the Penguins wouldn't have had 12 healthy forwards for tonight's game otherwise. He was re-assigned to the AHL three days ago after eight games in a row as a healthy scratch.
• Jarry will make his second consecutive start in goal for the Penguins. He's 22-12-6 with a .908 save percentage and 2.99 goals against average while essentially breaking even in goals saved above expected this season. Although nowhere close to entirely his fault, he has allowed nine goals on 72 shots against (.875 save percentage) in his last two starts.
• Friedman has been fined $2,000 by the NHL for an incident on April 2 against the Flyers. I wrote a quick update on that here.
• "We have to focus on one game at a time," Letang said when I asked if there's a general sense of excitement -- or nervousness -- in the room about the challenge in front of them. "We don't want to look too far ahead. Right now you kind of see the mood in the room, every guy's focused and they know how important this game is."
• Puck drops against the Wild at 7:08 p.m. here at PPG Paints Arena. I'll be there with Dejan Kovacevic for your coverage.
