Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury enjoys retirement journey with plenty of great memories

PITTSBURGH – Marc-Andre Fleury remembers the firsts.

His first NHL game was in Pittsburgh against Los Angeles, and Fleury had butterflies before puck drop. He was in line to lead the Penguins onto the ice but forgot his goalie stick, so he had to walk past everyone to retrieve it.

“Felt a little shame with that,” Fleury recalled.

The first shot he faced, from Eric Belanger, was a goal — “High glove,” Fleury said — but he got in a groove after that. He stopped Zigmund Palffy on a breakaway and denied a penalty shot in the third period.

“I poke-checked,” Fleury said. “So, that was very fun. It was like 46 saves, and the welcome from the fans, too, the cheers, the signs, yeah, that was very special.”

Pittsburgh lost 3-0 in that game on Oct. 10, 2003 (the final goal was an empty-netter), but eight days later Fleury secured his first win.

“Detroit against Hasek,” Fleury said, referring to legendary goalie Dominik Hasek, whom Fleury will eventually join in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

As for his first shutout, “1-0 in Chicago,” Fleury said.

Since then, Fleury has played more than 1,000 games across another 20 seasons while becoming one of the best goaltenders of all time, but he still remembers his firsts.

Will he memorialize the lasts, too?

“I guess we’ll see,” he said. “Time will tell.”

This is Fleury’s final season before he retires, an announcement he made back in April when he re-signed with the Wild for one more year.

To date, the season has been a normal procession of games and practices, which is Fleury’s preference. The Wild are off to an impressive start, going 5-1-2, and Fleury has played a minor part; he’s started just twice, with Filip Gustavsson seizing control of the crease.

But Fleury will be the guest of honor Tuesday night when he returns to Pittsburgh and receives the first sendoff of his farewell season from the team with which he won three Stanley Cups during the prime of his career.

“I have so many great memories from playing there, from teammates, from fans, from the organization, from games,” Fleury said. “When you see those memories again, definitely triggers some emotion.”

Fleury hasn’t had a change of heart.

As he prepared for the season over the summer, he felt at peace with his decision to retire even after missing the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

After 17 consecutive chances at a Cup, Fleury was restless during the longer-than-usual offseason, and his top priority in his final crack is to get the Wild back to the playoffs. But he also doesn’t want to limp to the finish line.

“I want to be helpful,” he said. “I want to help the team, and I want to be good. It’s my last one. I don’t want to just fizzle.”

If Fleury competes like he did Thursday at Tampa Bay, he won’t.

He put on a vintage performance, stabilizing the Wild early with eye-catching stops — like his glove save on the Lightning’s Michael Eyssimont — before they ran away 4-2 for Fleury’s first victory of the season.

“I love that feeling,” said Fleury, who will turn 40 on Nov. 28. “Love the feeling of winning at the end. Doesn’t matter how long I’ve played.”

His only other appearance is a 5-4 shootout loss to Seattle on Oct. 12, the second game of the season.

The Wild have relied mostly on Gustavsson, who cruised through his first five starts (4-0-1) before the 7-5 loss at Philadelphia on Saturday, and this hierarchy doesn’t come as a surprise. Gustavsson had plenty to prove after a down year, and the Wild also want to integrate rookie Jesper Wallstedt, meaning Fleury’s opportunities could be sporadic.

“Gus has been awesome, right?” Fleury said. “He’s been so good, consistent, and team’s winning. At the end of the day, that’s all I care about.

“So, I try to work hard in practice, get a good sweat, work on little things, and when I go back in, try and help the team to win.”

No matter how this season goes, Fleury will be known as a winner.

He’s up to 562 victories after passing his childhood idol Patrick Roy on Jan. 15 for second place in NHL history, and considering the average goalie workload has decreased since his heyday, Fleury might be the second-winningest goalie forever.

There aren’t enough games on the schedule for him to match Martin Brodeur’s 691 wins, but other milestones are within reach.

At 1,027 games, Fleury needs three more to leapfrog Roy for third all time. He could also catch Roberto Luongo (1,044) for second. Fleury has 75 shutouts, one behind Tony Esposito and Ed Belfour for 10th; Luongo is ninth with 77.

Also a Vezina Trophy recipient in 2021 as the NHL’s top goalie, Fleury is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.

He will be eligible for induction after he has been retired for three seasons.

“He got in the net and just won hockey games,” said Seattle coach Dan Bylsma, who coached Fleury and the Penguins from 2009 to 2014. “He won them in the regular season. He won them in the playoffs. He wins hockey games.”

At one point, victories were hard to come by for Fleury.

Pittsburgh was rebuilding when he arrived after getting drafted first overall in 2003.

“I was happy about it, obviously, right?” Fleury said of being the top pick. “But that wasn’t it. To me, that wasn’t [the end game]. I just wanted to play in the NHL.”

After debuting in 2003, Fleury ended up rejoining his junior hockey team that same season.

The next NHL season was wiped out by a lockout, but he reunited with the Penguins in 2005-06 before sticking with them for good in 2006-07.

By then, Pittsburgh had added Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, a nucleus that’s still intact, but there were growing pains before the Penguins turned into a contender.

“We were losing a lot at the beginning there,” Fleury said. “Then that young core, we found ways and then obviously we got veterans coming in and help us out to get going again. But just to go from a losing team into a very good team and the laughs, the good times along the way, just made everything else and winning so much more special.”

In a rematch of the previous year’s Stanley Cup Final, Fleury and Pittsburgh turned the tables on Detroit in 2009 for Fleury’s first championship.

His next two titles came in 2016 and 2017, the latter a bow on his Penguins tenure. Fleury exited later that year when Vegas chose him in the expansion draft. Crosby has felt Fleury’s absence the most on the airplane.

“I spent a lot of years sitting next to him,” Crosby said. “Good game, bad game, it was always fun to just chat after games. But just day to day, I would say just his attitude, even if you won five in a row or lost five in a row, you would never know with him every single day the way that he carried himself.”

Fleury is still Pittsburgh’s franchise leader in games, wins and shutouts among other goalie records, but he became a fan favorite for more than his statistics.

“What’s not to love?” Letang said. “Just his personality, there’s not a mean bone in his body. He comes to the rink with a big smile on his face. He plays the game with a big smile. He’s a great teammate, obviously. So, it’s hard not to love a guy like that, especially when he came in as an 18-year-old.

“First overall pick, tons of pressure, but he comes to the rink with same mindset, same mentality, battles hard, and he does it with a smile. Him and Sid are kind of the ones that put that franchise back on track. The rest is history.”

Since leaving the Penguins, Fleury doesn’t love playing in Pittsburgh.

“I haven’t had great success as a visitor,” he said.

He went 1-1 when he returned with the Golden Knights and 0-1 after Vegas traded him to Chicago. His only start against Pittsburgh with the Wild after they acquired him from the Blackhawks in 2022 was also a loss, but Fleury will get a chance to improve his record in what will be his 100th game with the Wild.

The Penguins are promoting special-edition Fleury shirts, jerseys and commemorative pucks that will be sold Tuesday night, and Fleury will have family and friends in attendance, including his wife, Veronique, daughters Estelle and Scarlett, son James and mother, France.

“The city still is thankful for him,” said Tampa Bay forward Jake Guentzel, who played alongside Fleury during Fleury’s final season with Pittsburgh.

Fleury is sure some of his lasts will dawn on him as they’re happening, but he doesn’t want to overthink them.

He’s also not keen on the attention he will get and would rather enjoy the season “in my own head.”

While he has pretty much all his masks on shelves at his home in his native Quebec, Fleury feels as if he should have collected more keepsakes through the years. But he doesn’t anticipate holding onto extra mementos this season.

“I’m not going to save the last piece of tape,” he said.

Other players might ask for his sticks or to take pictures with him, and to Fleury that’s easy to accommodate.

“Poor [head equipment manager] Tony DaCosta’s going to probably blow the stick budget this year,” Wild alternate captain Marcus Foligno said.

But what Fleury is most looking forward to in his final season is a typical day on the job.

“Coming to the rink with all the guys, work on the ice, winning,” he said. “That’s the one thing that won’t be something you can replace after hockey, right?”

That camaraderie is as much Fleury’s legacy as his accolades, and he’s still adding to his lore.

The practical jokester spoofed the Wild in the preseason when he dressed up as a member of the ice crew during a timeout, chirping at the bench as he shoveled the rink while wearing a fake mustache and glasses.

For the team Halloween party, he went as the McLovin character from the movie “Superbad,” a costume that required him to cut bangs.

“He’s one of the biggest dressing room teammate guys out there,” said Foligno, who is still trying to convince Fleury to re-up for one more year. “That’s the part we’re all going to miss when we’re all done.”

Nights like the one Fleury will have Tuesday in Pittsburgh are a reminder that the end is near, but it’s not here yet.

There’s still time for him to leave his mark on the game and vice versa.

“I love it,” he said. “I feel very fortunate that I could do this for so long in this league. Still love diving around, making saves on guys, yelling at them because they couldn’t score.

“I enjoy all of it. Lucky to keep doing it.”