Wild Withstand Late Fleury, Top Penguins 3-2

Way, way (waaaay) back on October 10, 2003, Marc–André Fleury made his NHL/Penguins debut. And what a grande entrée it was. The callow 19-year-old netminder gave a hint of the Hall-of-Fame career that was to follow, stopping 46 of 48 shots in a 3-0 loss to the Kings.

Hard to believe 20 years have passed. Where has the time gone?

Last night at the Xcel Energy Center, the now 39-year-old Flower gave a pretty fair imitation of that fresh-faced kid from long ago. Still marvelously athletic and agile, Fleury stood on his head and various other parts of his anatomy, in the process backstopping his newest team to a 3-2 victory over his original one with a show-stopping effort between the pipes.

On the flip side of the coin, the Pens were doomed by another sluggish start, fueled in no small part by a failed four-minute power play at the outset of the game.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We need to discern the elements needed for the power play…i.e.; a quarterback, a triggerman, a net-front presence, a puck retriever and a rover…and pick the best men for the job, regardless of uniform number. We keep drifting back to the same tired old patterns with the same old personnel. We miss Valtteri Puustinen, too.

I digress.

The Wild took full advantage of our lethargy, not to mention a double-minor to key penalty killer Lars Eller near the 13-minute mark. Given free and clear access on the zone entry, Matt Boldy beat Alex Nedeljkovic with a sizzling wrister from the slot off the rush.

Reilly Smith (remember him?) awakened from the dead to knot the score at 1-all at 2:54 of the second period, courtesy of a fine piece of work by Evgeni Malkin. With newcomer Jesse Puljujärvi running interference up the left wall, Geno bulled past Boldy with a power move in the neutral zone and barreled into the Wild zone. Spotting a seam, No. 71 slipped a gorgeous pass through three Wild defenders to Smith in the high slot. Reilly applied the finish, dropping to a knee and beating Fleury with a one-timer.

Unfortunately, the Wild regained the lead just over three minutes later on an absolutely awful goal, at least from a black-and-gold standpoint. Following a big save by Nedeljkovic, defenseman Jonas Brodin (one goal entering the contest) outworked Kris Letang in the left corner, then beat three Pens to the slot before wheeling and whipping the puck past Ned.

Terrible goal, particularly the lack of hustle and urgency on our part. To say nothing of putting us in the hole again.

Leave it to Sidney Crosby to drag us back into the fray. Working on a power play to start the final period, Sid tipped the puck past his old buddy Fleury thanks to a beautiful diagonal shot/pass from Erik Karlsson.

Again, our guys couldn’t hold serve, due in no small part to some absolutely rotten luck. Following an apparent go-ahead marker by Wild sniper Kirill Kaprizov, Nedeljkovic and his teammates pointed en masse at the Plexiglas behind the net, claiming the puck had touched the protective netting above the glass prior to the goal. A detail missed by the refs, and apparently the off-ice replay officials as well.

The bogus goal stood and the angry Pens were hit with a delay of game penalty to boot.

After killing off the penalty, the Pens were awarded two power plays of their own, including one in the final two minutes. Mike Sullivan made it a 6-on-4 by pulling Nedeljkovic. Although we had plenty of good looks and fired off four shots on goal, three by Geno and one by Sid, we couldn’t beat Fleury at his Gumbiesque best.

At the final horn, Flower was mobbed by his current teammates. Somehow, an altogether fitting end to the proceedings.

After all, it was his night.

Puckpourri

By the numbers, the Pens had the edge in shot attempts (72-68) and shots on goal (36-30), while the Wild ruled in scoring chances (32-31) and especially high-danger chances (15-11), according to Natural Stat Trick.

Fleury was feted with a heartwarming pre-game ceremony to honor his career achievements of 1000 NHL games played and 552 wins (soon to be 553), second-most all-time behind Martin Brodeur. His sequence of puppet-on-electroshock saves near the end reminded me of a similar game-saving sequence against the Capitals during the 2017 playoffs.

Not to be outdone by his beloved former teammate, Sid scored career goal No. 578, nudging past former Pens great Mark Recchi and into 21^st place all-time.

Congrats to both.

Speaking of Sid, he and Karlsson seem to think the game the same way, and they read and react well to each other. The coaching staff, Todd Reirden in particular, need to figure out ways to tune out the noise and isolate those two, especially on the power play.

Smith snapped an 11-game goalless drought, in the process harkening back to the marvelous chemistry he and Malkin shared early in the season. If they can just regain a little of that old magic…

So much for the consistency preached by POHO/GM Kyle Dubas in a recent interview. Man, does this team have trouble stringing together solid, 60-minute efforts.

Don’t look now, but our finishing issues seem to be growing worse. We haven’t scored as many as four goals in a game since our 4-1 victory over Philly on January 8, a span of 10 games. Remember when goalfests used to be the rule and not the exception? My, how times have changed.

Along those lines, a hidden concern. It seems every game we play these days are tight, low-scoring affairs, to say nothing of the overriding playoff implications. I’m worried about us wearing down under the strain physically, emotionally and mentally.

We’re 2-4-3 without Noel Acciari.

On Deck

The Pens (23-18-7, 53 points) are riding the back-to-back train, visiting Winnipeg tonight. Expect the Jets (30-14-5, 65 points) to be out for revenge following our victory over them on Tuesday night.

We’re presently in fifth place in the Metro, seven points behind the Flyers with four games in hand. The expected Philly collapse sans Carter Hart ain’t happenin.’ The Islanders are gathering steam under new coach Patrick Roy as well.

The wild-card picture isn’t any rosier. We’re five points behind the Red Wings with two games in hand.