EDMONTON — Kirill Kaprizov looked over at Marc-Andre Fleury in the Wild’s latest celebratory postgame road locker room and just started laughing: “He’s funny.”
Now, Fleury sure didn’t find it funny when 27 seconds into his first start in two weeks he gave up the flukiest goal imaginable Thursday night. It was his 1,000th career start and yet another milestone in a Wild sweater where the future Hall of Famer was passing his childhood idol, Patrick Roy, for the third-most games (1,030) for a goalie in NHL history.
So he did not envision starting by allowing Leon Draisaitl to score on a rolling puck from 134 feet away.
“But like 10 minutes later, somebody try to shoot at him (behind) the red line,” Kaprizov said.
Fleury made the save on the chip-in, then did, as Marcus Foligno called it, “a little shimmy-shake with his hands to the fans” who only 10 minutes earlier were taunting him with “FLEURY” chants and mocking him with an exaggerated cheer when he made his first easy save of the game.
“That’s what’s great about him and it gave us all a little chuckle on the bench, too, so it kind of makes us relaxed knowing that he’s having a good time out there,” Foligno said.
Fleury said his intent with the “little celly” was “to let the boys know I got it and we were good.”
The Wild sure had Fleury’s back during a 5-3 win over Connor McDavid and the Oilers at Rogers Place. As Kaprizov said of fluky goals, “sometimes it happens. Bad bounce. It’s (doesn’t make the team) nervous. It’s more like try to help to back him because he don’t play how many games?
“You just want to help him. It’s Flower. (He showed), he don’t care about this goal.”
Marc-Andre Fleury allows one of the most bizarre goals you’ll ever see#LetsGoOilers | #mnwild pic.twitter.com/UD9RKbvAys
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) November 22, 2024
The Wild have the second-most points in the NHL with 29. They’re the best road team in the NHL at 9-1-2. And like they always do, the Wild showed incredible resiliency on the road by overcoming that Fleury gaffe, then two overturned goals — one where Foligno was offside on what would have been Yakov Trenin’s first goal with the Wild, the other on a second straight “quick whistle” by a referee in two games.
“Great road game … again,” said Marcus Johansson, who scored one of the Wild’s three second-period goals. Everyone’s pulling their weight. I feel like we’re playing real solid all over the ice and I think we had a good start, it was a tough bounce and then we had two goals called back. But we stick with it and it shows a lot of character in this room.”
Fleury hadn’t played since Nov. 7 in San Jose and was only in the net for the fifth time this season. Yet, he brushed off the early “stupid” goal and made 28 saves to improve to 4-0-1 for the 13-3-3 Wild.
“It was coming, rolling to me and right in front of my stick it just bounced over,” Fleury said of Draisaitl’s clear from the opposite end that somehow slid the length of the ice off Kaprizov’s skate and past McDavid and through Jake Middleton’s legs before his wickets. “It was dumb though. I should have just make sure I stopped it first and make sure I moved it.
“I let out a couple of ‘fringe’ and ‘fudge’ and then start over, there is nothing you can do anymore and then stopped the next one. The guys came by and they gave me a tap and they laughed and kind of made it a little lighter. And they battled well, nobody sat back, they had a couple of goals disallowed and still came at them.”
Fleury definitely put on a show, a game in which he pulled out all his greatest hits like thrusts, lunges at the puck, barrel rolls and a tremendous Fleury pokecheck to ruin McDavid’s second-period breakaway. The Wild, who have held McDavid to his second-lowest points per game against any opponent the past six years (1.16), was held to one assist.
“It doesn’t stop,” Foligno said of the pokecheck. “It happens in practice all the time. Even warmups.”
FLOWER WITH THE POKE CHECK 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/PmUJcuNXbx
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 22, 2024
Fleury, who turns 40 next Thursday, admits he’s feeling pressure to win because he’s not playing a lot.
“It’s not always easy, playing is what’s fun,” he said. “It’s what you battle in practice for, playing in games and that’s why you can compete with the best players and try to win. And the feeling of winning games and battling with your teammates is awesome and I always want more. But at the same time, the team has been playing good and we’ve been winning, (Filip Gustavsson’s) been awesome, he has the best stats in the league, so I cheer him on and try to go hard in practice and when I get called upon, I try to help the team.”
It was another workmanlike road win for the Wild, a game where Fleury’s bosom buddy, Freddy Gaudreau, scored two goals and an assist and Foligno had a goal and an assist.
Freddy Gaudreau with some great hand-eye to bat it out of the air for his second on the night 🦇 pic.twitter.com/XVkpk6pHoK
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 22, 2024
The Wild also overcame a late second-period scare where Kaprizov left the game after being kneed by Drake Caggiula. Matt Boldy fought him as a result. Kaprizov said after the game he thinks he’s fine and he did return to the bench at the exact moment Gaudreau scored his first of two goals — the eventual winning goal — with 2:58 left in the second.
Wild players and coach John Hynes didn’t like the hit by Caggiula, but as Foligno said, “Obviously, to see him (Kaprizov) come back was good. I haven’t really seen what happened. Just kind of collided. We just saw his face after the injury. You don’t like when guys stepping up in that no gray area of the rink. It’s against your best player, so you gotta respond. Credit to Matt Boldy.
“Honestly, Bolds has been playing like a beast this season. Can’t say enough good things about him. I just think that shows the character and how the season has started for us. I think you get guys that are mentally engaged and wanting to pick up for their teammates and Matt Boldy’s been our best player really for the start of the season.”
Kirill Kaprizov has gone to the dressing room following a collision with Drake Caggiula. pic.twitter.com/pjVyofSQIt
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 22, 2024
The Trenin goal less than two minutes later after the fluky one on Fleury would have settled the nerves. But it was erased, yet Boldy tied the score anyway midway through the first.
Foligno then crashed the net for a go-ahead goal until Corey Perry tied the score at 2-2 when his wraparound deflected off a Wild skate and in.
But then the Wild took over against an injury-battered Oilers team. Johansson made it 3-2 after forcing a turnover, then Hartman set up Gaudreau for a 4-2 lead before Gaudreau scored again in the third.
Suddenly, the Wild are getting the depth scoring that was missing earlier in the year when Kaprizov and Boldy were carrying the team.
“It’s a system that everybody believes in and works at it and trusts,” Gaudreau said. “I think our focus is just to get better and better within that system. We’re a team I think that is solid defensively and we get our bounces from solid defense and we keep working that way.”
Hynes continues to be impressed by the Wild’s resiliency within games no matter what happens.
“The big thing I like is the mental maturity that we’re now starting to show — that focus, how to play with the lead, what happens when bad things happen in the game, the discipline within your structure, the penalty discipline,” Hynes said. “All those types of little things, I think, are becoming more and more automatic within the group.”
The Wild are rallying around each other and wanted to do everything they could to have Fleury’s back Thursday. It was an honor for him to pass Roy and nobody wanted it ruined by one faux pas 27 seconds in.
“I just feel very fortunate, lucky that I was able to stick around for that long and do what I love for so long,” Fleury said. “I got help obviously, I’ve had people help me stay loose and flexible and all that, staying healthy. I’m very fortunate to still do it.
“I never thought I would make it to the NHL, honestly. Patrick and Marty (Brodeur), for me, are the best goalies that have played the game and obviously I look up to them.”
Fleury laughed off his “stupid” goal against. And the Wild laughed it off along with him. As Kaprizov said, “We played our game the whole game.”
“I just liked the overall tone on the bench,” Johansson said. “There’s nothing that fazes us. We just stick with it and we keep going to work shift by shift. I think that mentality has gotten us a long way this year.”
(Photo of Kasperi Kapanen and Marc-Andre Fleury: Perry Nelson / Imagn Images)
