A Flower Grows Again in Pittsburgh

One of the greatest goalies in National Hockey League history began his career in Pittsburgh and now he will finish his career in the city where he first minded the nets. Marc-André Fleury who bears the nickname “Flower” retired following the 2024-25 season and despite contract offers from multiple teams in the offseason, the Pittsburgh Penguins offered a contract on September 12 which Fleury signed to come back to his original team. 

The word is that Fleury will play in the preseason game on September 27 when the Pens take on the Columbus Blue Jackets. All signs point towards Fleury playing in that one game and then retiring as a Penguin. If that becomes the case, Fleury will have left behind an amazing career and ranked among the best of the best.

In career victories for goalies, only the great Martin Brodeur is ahead of Fleury with 691 wins as Fleury will retire with 575 for second best. Fleury is among some of the best ever as the top five is rounded out with Patrick Roy, Roberto Luongo, and Ed Belfour. Only the Florida Panthers, Sergei Bobrovsky and the New York Rangers Jonathan Quick are active players in the top 15 as Bobrovsky heads into the forthcoming season with 429 wins and Quick with 404.

Having been the goalie for several Penguins Stanley Cup championship teams, Marc-Andre Fleury is third all-time in playoff games appeared in with 170 far behind Patrick Roy’s leading 247. Roy is also the all-time leader in playoff victories with 151 where Fleury is third with 92. One of the most important stats a goalie can have is the number of saves they make.

In the history of the NHL, Martin Brodeur holds the record most saves with 28,928. Roberto Luongo is next with 28,409. Then there is Marc-Andre Fleury who saved a goal 27,188 times in his career. Rounding out the top five are Patrick Roy and the great Tony Esposito. In the post season, Patrick Roy holds the record for most saves with 6,559 followed by Martin Brodeur with 4,830, and then Fleury with 4,446.

Marc-Andre Fleury’s lowest ranking in all time statistics would be his goals against average where he is 63rd all-time with a mark of 2.604. In the playoffs he wasn’t much better, ranking 134th in history with an average of 2.563. When it comes to shutouts, Fleury has 76 for his career which puts him in 10th place all time as the leader is once again that man named Brodeur who shut out 125 opponents. 

In the Stanley Cup playoffs however, Fleury has been clutch. He is third all-time with 16 shutouts in the postseason. In the 2014-2015 season, Marc-Andre Fleury led the league in shutouts with 10. Fleury was the goalie of record when Pittsburgh became NHL champions in 2009 and then repeated with back-to-back cups in 2016 and 2017. In 2003 after he was the first overall pick in the NHL draft by Pittsburgh Fleury, he was named Rookie of the Month for October. 

Marc-Andre Fleury was named to the All-Star game five times and was placed on the All-Decade First Team for the 2010s. Fleury also won the “NHL Fan Choice Award” for Save of the Year in three straight seasons from 2019-2021. League awards won by Fleury were the William M. Jennings Trophy in 2021, and the Vezina Trophy for that same season.

As for team awards, in the 2009-2010 and again in the 2011-2012 seasons Fleury was presented with the Aldege "Baz" Bastien Memorial Good Guy Award. He won the team’s Most Valuable Player honors in 2011. For that rookie season of 2003-2004 Fleury played in 21 games losing 14 games and winning only four. His goals-against-average was 3.64 and he made 605 saves.

The season in which Fleury won the Vezina Trophy (2021), Fleury started 36 games for the Las Vegas Knights and won 26 of those losing 10 with six shutouts and 918 saves but had an eye-opening goals-against average of 1.98. Marc Andre-Fleury will be 41 on November 28 born in Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, Canada in 1984. He was just 19 years of age when the Penguins drafted him.

Fleury’s career began in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) where he played in the major junior league for four seasons as a member of the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles where he won the Mike Bossy Trophy presented to the league's top prospect as well as winning the Telus Cup awarded to the player who is named the top defensive player. This all came in 2003, which prompted Pittsburgh to make him the first overall pick in 2003.

On a personal side of Marc Andre-Fleury, he is married to Veronique Larosee (nee) in 2012, and the couple has two daughters and a son. Because of his wife’s Abenaki/Mikmaq background (Indigenous sect of people in Canada), to honor her ancestry Fleury had a custom-made goalie mask made in 2023 for his team’s “Native American Heritage Night.” The NHL league office however forbade him to wear the mask in the game and informed him he would be fined as well as his team if he moved forward with the idea. So, Fleury simply wore it during warmups.



Known as “Flower” Marc Andre-Fleury got the nickname from a translation of his last name which in French means flower and “fleuri” is defined as “in bloom.” What remains to be seen for Marc Andre-Fleury is when he is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame one day, does he go into the hall sporting a Penguins cap or one of the other teams he played for. Most likely he will become another Pittsburgh athlete that is inducted into his league’s hall of fame just as other Penguins have done and joining the many Steelers players in the NFL’s Pro Football Hall of Fame and Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell as well other Pirates players enshrined in Cooperstown, New York.