Marc-André Fleury picks up his 550th NHL regular season win

The Minnesota Wild goaltender Marc-André Fleury picked up his 550th win at home against the Boston Bruins, the third goaltender in NHL history to do so. So far, only two members of the Hockey Hall of Fame, Martin Brodeur and Patrick Roy, have done so.

Marc-André Fleury at 550 regular season wins

In the Minnesota Wild vs. Boston Bruins game (3:2), when David Pastrnak scored one goal on the losing side and his 20th of the season, the veteran in goal Marc-André Fleury garnered most of the attention.

The home goalie scored twice, but made 19 saves. The Wild’s win was also important. For Fleury himself, it was win number 550. He is just one win away from equaling the second place in the NHL history charts of goaltending legend Patrick Roy.

Fleury was selected as the number one pick in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins. He also spent a significant portion of his career there. He celebrated three Stanley Cup wins here in 2009, 2016 and 2017.

He also has gold from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. He didn’t make a single game back then, though. He has also been selected to the NHL All-Star exhibition game several times. He received a great honor when he was also selected to the first team of the entire decade since the start of the millennium in 2010.

Vezina Trophy winner

His greatest individual success, however, came in his “old age”. In the 2020-21 season, when he was already a goaltender for the Vegas Golden Knights, he won the Vezina Trophy, the trophy for the best goaltender of the season, as one of the oldest players in league history.

It was an abbreviated season due to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of the usual 82 games, only 56 games were played. And it was Fleury who literally excelled this season. He played in 36 games and came away a winner in 26 of them.

He added 6 clean sheets, so he didn’t score in every sixth game. In addition, he pushed his career goaltending average below 2 goals per game (1.98) for the first time in his career. He also deservedly won the William M. Jennings Trophy, which is awarded to the team that scores the fewest goals over the course of the season.

The 39 year old Canadian goaltender still has a lot to offer and it is only a matter of time before the second place in the number of wins is changed.

In his career so far, he has already picked up at least 30 wins in a season nine times and has managed to have 40 wins in a season twice. After his active career, his name will definitely be inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame.

Source: NHL