Marc-Andre Fleury surrenders the winning goal in the third period yesterday against the Islanders at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y. The Islanders defeated the Penguins, 6-5.
Fleury caps shaky performance by allowing a goal with 26.8 seconds remaining
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
By Dave Molinari, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
UNIONDALE, N.Y. -- Marc-Andre Fleury obviously did not stop every shot he faced during the Penguins' 14-0-2 run.
He didn't even stop every one he could have. Or should have.
But Fleury invariably seemed to come up with the key save when his team needed it most. Sometimes in regulation. Sometimes in overtime. Sometimes in a shootout.
Almost always, when it truly mattered.
Not yesterday. Fleury's performance in the Penguins' 6-5 loss to the New York Islanders at Nassau Coliseum -- their first defeat in regulation since a 5-2 setback Jan. 10 at Florida -- ran the gamut from awful to abysmal, with a bit of average sprinkled in.
And his afternoon came to a horrific end when, with 26.8 seconds left in regulation, Islanders center Mike Sillinger took a drop pass from Andy Hilbert and beat Fleury with a terribly ordinary shot from the top of the left circle to break a 5-5 tie.
"[Sillinger] shot from beside my defenseman's leg," Fleury said. "I don't know. It went [between] my pads and my glove."
Fleury's teammates, not surprisingly, had no qualms about giving him a mulligan for stopping just 24 of 30 shots. They noted that they were guilty of breakdowns that let New York score twice in 15 seconds early in the second period, and that they had leads in every period and were unable to protect any of them.
"We made some mistakes that really, really hurt us," right winger Mark Recchi said. "Especially when it was 3-1. There were some big momentum-killers there."
Coach Michel Therrien, however, wasn't nearly as charitable.
People near the Penguins' dressing room immediately after the game reported that Therrien gave Fleury a blistering assessment of his play, and he wasn't much easier on him when speaking with reporters.
"Fleury was not good," Therrien said. "This is four games in a row that he's given up way too many goals. ... Lately, we give him like four or five or six goals to help us to win games.
"He's got to be better than that. It can happen once in a while. This is four games in a row that I think Marc was ... fair. That's not good enough."
Therrien said that the idea of replacing Fleury with Jocelyn Thibault during the game "crossed my mind," but he did not make that switch.
While Fleury had a game he can't forget soon enough, his co-workers shrugged it off as an unfortunate, but inevitable, occurrence.
"He had a tough night, but we all have tough nights," center Sidney Crosby said. "When a goalie has a tough night, there are a lot more eyes on it than [when it happens to] a forward or a defenseman.
"He's saved our butts a lot this year. Hopefully, we'll all bounce back."
Fleury, one of the game's truly happy spirits, was visibly upset after the game, removing his equipment in a manner that bordered on violent, and punching the door that separates the visiting team's quarters at the Coliseum.
Whether that was Fleury's response to his own play -- or to Therrien's critique of it -- isn't known. What seems clear, though, is that Therrien's harsh evaluation almost certainly will have some sort of impact, positive or negative, on Fleury.
The loss stripped most of the luster for a spectacular afternoon by the Penguins' No. 1 line, which accounted for all five of their goals.
Left winger Ryan Malone got his second hat trick of the season -- the other came against the Islanders Dec. 15 at Mellon Arena -- by scoring in the first minute of each period, while Recchi scored two goals and assisted on the other three and Crosby had four assists to push his league-leading points total to 95.
Few would have expected the Penguins to lose a game in which their best line was so productive.
"That's how the hockey gods work sometimes," Crosby said. "It's not always fair or right."
There was, however, probably some justice in the Penguins finally losing a game in which they squandered yet another multiple-goal lead. That has become a staple of their game and the hard reality is that if a team lives on the edge long enough, eventually, it's going to fall off.
Especially when its goaltender isn't there to save it. Which is why the Penguins' 14-0-2 streak is now nothing more than a footnote in franchise history.
"Everybody wanted to keep it going," Fleury said. "It was going well for us. ... It would have been a good two points."
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(Dave Molinari can be reached at DWMolinari@Yahoo.com.)
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