Free Ride is Over for Fleury

At his best, Marc-Andre Fleury is one of the top goaltenders in the National Hockey League.

And like most elite goaltenders, Fleury often suffers at the expense of unreasonable fan expectations.  Which is a politically correct way of saying he bears the brunt of the blame whenever the red light goes on, deserved or not.

That’s the life of an NHL goaltender; especially one who plays for a talented team that can be charitably described as “lapse” times defensively from time to time.  Tom Barrasso lived in comparable fashion during his best years in the Burgh, long before he became a local media pariah.  It's fair to say that life as a Penguin goaltender is far more challenging than it is for say, Brian Elliott in St’ Louis.

Perhaps it truly is a matter of expectations.  We have seen that Fleury at his best can be as good as any goaltender in the game.  So to whatever extent he’s not at that level it’s considered a letdown.  That may very well be the case but I struggle to believe that Henrik Lundqvist faces the same level of vitriol as Fleury after a bad performance.

More often than not I think Fleury is an easy scapegoat.  Most fans remember Michael Grabner’s shot going under Fleury’s arm; not the horrendous giveaway by Deryk Engelland that precipitated a 100 foot breakaway. 

So with that preamble in the bank, I will now contradict pretty much everything I’ve stated above.  As great as Fleury is and can be, as great as he was during back to back Stanley Cup finals’ runs, he is officially on notice.  He has to be better, especially in the post season.  And if he is not, he will not play.  The Penguins made that crystal clear by bringing in Tomas Vokoun as their second goaltender.

Ray Shero could have signed any number of back-ups during the offseason.  He could have brought in a reliable second guy like Chris Mason or Al Montoya.  Instead he chose a goaltender with a decade long track record as a 60+ game starter.  That was not an accident or coincidence, it was a message.  The goaltending paradigm in the Burgh has changed.

Simply put, the days where Marc-Andre Fleury can expect to start 4 of 5 games on reputation alone are over.  The Pens have made it clear that if he’s not the best goaltender, he sits.  I truly believe Fleury must outplay Vokoun to keep his job, for better or for worse.

The issue is no longer assessing Fleury’s culpability in losses.  It’s now about whether Fleury can be the difference maker in Penguin wins.  Good is no longer good enough.  Fleury has to be great, and consistently so.

That’s his pedigree and his pay grade.  When you have a $5 Million per year goaltender and a shaky defense, the expectations are clear.  Fleury needs to return to his 2009 and 2010 post season form.  He cannot be a caretaker net minder on this team; he has to be the Jonathan Quick or Tim Thomas style difference maker he is fully capable of being.

There is no getting around the fact that Fleury was terrible against Philly last year.  We can debate the reasons why; including my staunch belief he was grievously overplayed in the regular season (twice starting 4 games in 6 days).  There is no doubt in my mind he wore down physically in April.

And I will not let the Penguins off the hook for what was a historically bad defensive performance in that series.  No goaltender would have thrived behind that defensive abomination.  That loss put everyone on notice; the team has to be better from 1 to 20; including the head coach. 

But simply put, Marc-Andre Fleury must be better.  He has to be a post season difference maker on this team every bit as much as Crosby and Malkin.

 
The Pens have departed early from the playoffs in three straight seasons.  There were plenty of reasons the Pens lost in 2010 and 2011 and Fleury is only one of them.  In fairness, Fleury played better than he gets credit for against Tampa and without 87 and 71 there was little or no chance the Pens would win that series.

Last year however was a different animal.  Yes the defense was exceptionally poor at times but it also became clear that other than game 5, Fleury was not making the big saves when needed.  He lost his confidence and his game fell apart.  Even after the Consol crowd performed mental CPR in game 5, Fleury crashed back to earth in game 6.

His performance was bad at face value; incomprehensible in the context of how great Fleury was for most of the season. 

It was truly the first time since he arrived in Pittsburgh that I questioned Fleury’s future with the organization.  It was also eerily reminiscent of his early season struggles in 2010-11.  That was the year that Fleury struggled terribly for two months; coinciding fortuitously with the greatest stretch of performance in Brent Johnson's life.

Which brings us back to Tomas Vokoun.

I am by no means his biggest supporter.  He always struck me as a great regular season goalie on bad teams; a guy who puts up a high save percentage but never wins anything.  You cannot objectively evaluate Vokoun’s career without conceding that he has only twice appeared in the post season and NEVER won a playoff series.  Even his work for the Czech Olympic team was subpar the one year he was their starter.

But there is no questioning that Vokoun has a number one track record and a starter’s pedigree.  There is also no question that the Penguins have never teamed a goaltender of this caliber with MAF.  At the very least, he’s capable of pushing Fleury; at the most he’s capable of taking his job.  That’s something Johnson could never do; even during his career season of 2010-11.

At face value, Vokoun was brought in to ease Fleury’s workload.  In reality however he was brought in as goaltending insurance and a legitimate threat to the number one job.  To wit, Fleury had a strong game last week in Ottawa and followed it up with a so-so performance against the Islanders; a game where he allowed just one obviously weak goal.   It’s the type of game that you could easily excuse a goaltender for given that the Pens were flat top to bottom.  In past years, that’s exactly what would have happened.

Not this year.

This year, Bylsma went immediately to Vokoun.  And Vokoun responded with a tremendous and stabilizing performance behind the best Penguin defensive effort of the year.  My guess is he will be back in the nets on Saturday against New Jersey.  A strong performance there and he might get the floundering Craps on Sunday as well.  That never would have happened with Johnson last season.

In the end, this is a good thing.  I believe Fleury is at his best when he’s pushed; as shown by Johnson in 2011 and by Ty Conklin in 2008.  Fleury never played better than he did after Conklin set a shockingly high bar with career best work.  When Fleury is at that level he is absolutely a game changing goaltender.  Having legitimate competition for post season playing time might very well push him back to it.

I also recall Bob Johnson doing the same thing to Barrasso during the first half of the 1990-91 season.  Barrasso was coming off a sluggish 1989-90 season and perhaps taking his number one position for granted.  I’m fairly confident that Tommy was not thrilled sitting behind the uninspired likes of Wendell Young and Frank Pietrangelo but ultimately the message got through; you have to be better.  That season ended with Pens carrying their first Stanley Cup.

The Penguins have some work to do to be legitimate Stanley Cup contenders.  That includes addressing a glaring need for grit and two obvious holes; a defensive defensemen and a second line winger.  As talented as this team is, those needs MUST be addressed. 

And just assuredly, they must get elite level goaltending.  Fleury has proven he can give that in the past.  This year, he'll have to prove it again.