Reception for Fleury is raucous
that he had faced in practice for 13 seasons.
“Now I get to see what the other goalie faced all these years,” Fleury said. “These guys, it’s good to play against them, but they’re very talented, very fast and able to create a lot of space and time for themselves to get some goals.”
Fleury admitted his history with guys such as Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel, both of whom scored on him in the third period, might have gotten in his head a bit.
“Sometimes I caught myself maybe thinking a little too much,” Fleury said. “What they like to do, their tendencies I have seen a lot. It’s OK, hopefully it’ll get easierto play them as it goes on.”
There were plenty of highlights for Fleury, though, even in defeat. He stopped Jake Guentzel and Carl Hagelin on breakaways, and unleashed one of his patented pokechecks when Malkin was in alone on him in midway throughthe second period.
Fleury made sure to get in some playful trash-talk with his ex-teammate after that one.
“I had Geno on the breakaway,” Fleury said. “I got him with the poke-check, so I lethim know.”
Fleury also got to say hi to some of his oldest and most loyal friends in the building: The PPG Paints Arena goal posts. They came to his rescue a few times in the game, including twice when it looked likeKessel had him beat.
“Phil wanted one,” Fleury said. “Hit the post a few times and kept telling me he was comingback. He did get one.”
Fleury now is 1-1 against his old team, with a win in December in Las Vegas. If you ask his teammates, though, this loss doesn’t fall onhis shoulders.
“I just think we didn’t play good enough in front of him,” Vegas winger James Neal, also a former Penguins player, said. “I thought he played great. The score didn’t tell how good he played in net. He kept us in it, big saves, point-blank saves that we can’t give up one after another.”
As a former Penguins star himself, Neal understood what Fleury meant to Pittsburgh. He still was blown away by what he saw unfold Tuesdaynight.
“It’s pretty special,” Neal said. “I don’t know how many players can go back to a team like that and they’re chanting your name in warm-ups. It’s prettyamazing.”
From being on the other bench to facing Kessel wrist shots, Fleury said everything about the night was just a little bit “weird,” but in a good way.
“[I played] a lot of games here, so it was different,” he said. “It’ll be a game I rememberforever.”