Lessons from Fleury’s Career as it Ends Where it Started
- Fleury, Brodeur, and Roy occupy spots 1-3 on the NHL all-time wins list, proving there is no single personality type required to be an elite goaltender.
- Fleury says he tried to be more serious at coaches' request but found it hurt his performance — he played best when relaxed and having fun.
- Coaches who force goalies into a narrow, stoic mold risk suppressing the authentic personality traits that actually drive elite performance.
- NHL goaltenders consistently tell InGoal Magazine that leaning into who they already are — not conforming to an archetype — is central to their greatness.
- Fleury's farewell with Pittsburgh, including a public practice and preseason game against Columbus, closed a 22-season career that began where it ended.
Why So Serious?
Newly retired Marc-Andre Fleury is inarguably among the greatest goaltenders in NHL history. A quick scan of the NHL’s all-time leaders in almost any goaltending category confirms that.
But Fleury doesn’t fit the mythology of the goaltender as this ultimate competitor, this stoic guardian of the crease, the way Patrick Roy, one of his boyhood idols, does.
Instead, he’s more like his other idol, Martin Brodeur, in that he often seemed to be … gasp … having fun playing hockey. Not for nothing, Brodeur, Fleury and Roy occupy spots 1-3 on the NHL’s all-time wins list.
“I’ve had times, maybe in the slumps or bad moments, that coaches maybe wanted me to be bit more quiet when I was younger,” Fleury says on his last InGoal Radio Podcast appearance.
As Fleury returns to Pittsburgh on a professional tryout contract to suit up one last time for the Penguins franchise he started with — first in a public practice on Friday and then a preseason game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday — now is the perfect time to consider some of the lessons from his remarkable 22 NHL seasons. That includes how that fun-loving personality and seemingly permanent smile were sometimes frowned upon.
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