Marc-Andre Fleury won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins back in 2009. That will feel like a lifetime ago for many Penguins fans on Tuesday night after watching Fleury get beaten the surprising New York Islanders.
Since 2005, Fleury has the 22nd-best save percentage among goalies with at least 200 starts, and he looked like the 22nd-best goalie in the arena at the Nassau Coliseum. Punctuated by a Casey Cizikas goal in the closing minutes, Fleury’s performance was anything but Stanley Cup-caliber, and it will certainly have Penguins fans clamoring for Tomas Vokoun in a pivotal Game 5 back at the CONSOL Energy Center.
Then again, there wasn’t much that Fleury could do against John Tavares in what ended up being the game-winning goal. Check it out in the video below.
The Price is … hurt
Then again, the Penguins weren’t the only ones turning to their backup goalie Tuesday. The Canadiens were forced to play Peter Budaj in overtime of their game after starter Carey Price went down with an injury. To make matters worse, Price was hurt on the game-tying goal from Cory Conacher, which came with just 22.6 seconds remaining in regulation.
Adding insult to injury was Senators forward Kyle Turris, who scored on Budaj just 2:32 into overtime to spot the Senators a 3-1 series lead over the No. 2-seeded Habs. Check out Conacher’s game-tying goal (and Price’s injury) below.
Emergency backup
Meanwhile, the Wild can look at the Canadiens and envy their goalie situation. Minnesota goaltender Josh Harding — he himself filling in for the injured Niklas Backstrom — left Game 4 against the Blackhawks after a collision with Jonathan Toews in the first period. That cleared the way for the backup’s backup, Darcy Kuemper. The 23-year-old was recalled by the Wild on an emergency basis and wasn’t expected to play until, well, an emergency.
See the hit that injured Harding below.
Attack of the clone
Of course, all these goalie issues might be solved if only the teams had technology available to clone their players. Unfortunately, Ottawa is hogging the only working clone machine in North America and using it on their coach, Paul McLean.
