The Minnesota Wild have signed goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to a two-year contract extension worth $3.5 million in average annual value (AAV). They acquired the 37-year-old from the Chicago Blackhawks ahead of the NHL trade deadline in March in exchange for a conditional second-round pick.
Fleury won three Stanley Cups as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins. His first came as a starter in 2009 when superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin first established themselves in the top tier of the NHL. He began the 2016 and 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs as Pittsburgh’s starting goaltender, but Matt Murray took over his crease midway through each of the two postseason runs.
Related: 2022 NHL Draft Guide
He won the Vezina Trophy as a member of the Vegas Golden Knights in 2020-21 with a stellar .928 save percentage (SV%) and a 1.98 goals against average (GAA) in 36 games. However, Vegas continued their active roster shuffling and dealt him for an underwhelming package due to financial constraints during the 2021 offseason.
The Wild rode Cam Talbot into playoff position in March, but they jumped at the opportunity to upgrade with an established netminder like Fleury. They finished with the second-highest point total in the Western Conference, just edging the Calgary Flames. However, they suffered a disappointing first-round exit against the St. Louis Blues in six games. Talbot, 35, and Fleury will likely share the crease in a 1A, 1B tandem next season.
Fleury withstood father time during the shortened 2020-21 season with an outstanding 17.9 goals saved above expected (GSAx). He helped Vegas make a run to the Semifinal Round during the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs before a surprising loss to the Montreal Canadiens. Only Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy had more GSAx, and both goaltenders played at least six more games than Fleury.
While Fleury might have been an elite goaltender at certain points during his 18-year NHL career and as recently as 2020-21, his numbers declined drastically last season. His SV% dropped to .908, and he finished with -17.6 GSAx in 56 games. Only Kerel Vejmelka, Kevin Lankanen, and Philipp Grubauer finished with worse totals last season. Playing in the 11th-most games among goaltenders certainly helped drag his total down.
The Wild own the 19th and 24th picks in the first round of the 2022 NHL Entry Draft on Thursday night. Minnesota general manager Bill Guerin recently dealt Kevin Fiala to the Los Angeles Kings in an attempt to reshape their roster ahead of the 2022-23 season.
