COLUMBUS, Ohio – Pascal Vincent has known Marc-Andre Fleury since he was 15 years old.
“I had hair back then,” Vincent quipped.
On the recommendation of chief scout Yannick Lemay, Vincent, general manager and coach of the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, selected Fleury in the first round of the QMJHL draft, but the plan was to return him to the midget until he was 16 years old. It was Fleury's first time away from home, and Cape Breton was 14 hours from Montreal and an English-speaking city for the French-Canadian who spoke little English, so he was shy and homesick despite a trademark smile even at the time.
“I thought, ‘We have to bring him back,’ but we couldn’t,” Vincent recalls. “Every practice he was the best guy ever, and we had to keep him. We kept him. And he just took off.”
Twenty years after Eagles screamer Vincent Fleury graduated as the No. 1 overall pick in the NHL, Fleury tied his childhood idol, Patrick Roy, for the second-most regular season wins in NHL history with his young coach from 2000-04 standing behind him. The opposite seat.
Honestly what are the chances of that?
Marco Rossi's first overtime win after Marcus Johansson forced overtime with 1:31 left in the game gave the Minnesota Wild a dramatic 4-3 win over the Vincent Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena. To say that Vincent was proud to watch the classic 'Flower' display for his 551st career win is an understatement.
Fleury likes to make his starts fun and entertaining, and that was it for him when he raced back into the crease to try and stop Justin Danforth's effort into an empty net (Danforth missed wide) 12 seconds before Ryan Hartman set up Johansson's squeak through Daniil Tarasov. In extra time, just 16 seconds before Matt Boldy beat Rossi, Fleury made a brilliant save from Igor Chenakhov's shot.
As Boldy said, “That game will be over if he doesn't make the save.”
As Vincent said The athlete In the hallway after the game while meeting with the goalkeeper he once coached as a teenager, “When he made that save in overtime, I said to myself, 'All right, Flower. Just take it.' He is the best.”
Vincent could talk about Flory for hours.
“He's headed straight to the Hall of Fame,” Vincent said. “Aside from hockey, he's just a great guy who comes from a great family. Really happy for him.”
It should come as no surprise that Vincent is only the fourth goalie in NHL history to surpass 1,000 games, and he will soon be behind Martin Brodeur for the most wins in league history. Vincent learned Flory's competitiveness when he was 16 years old.
“I pulled him in one game,” Vincent said. “I can't remember why, whether it was the team or him. At that time we didn't have the technology we have today, so the (backup goalkeeper) on the bench had to take some stats and shots and shot positions. So I pulled him, I don't remember if This was the second (or third) period.
“Anyway… after the game I looked at the paper and there was nothing on that piece of paper. And that's his job to do it. He's been pulled, but you still have to do your job on the bench. He wrote something like:” “I'm not a statistician, I'm a goalkeeper. And I was crazy, but I loved it. He told me a lot about his personality. He wanted to be a goalkeeper. He was angry because he didn't stay in the net. We had a difficult conversation.”
Fleury looks back on those days with fondness and knows how important it was for the person who mentored him as a child to be part of this special night even if it meant defeat for the young team he mentored.
“When I went to Cape Breton, I was about 15 or 16. I was away from home. Everything was in English,” Fleury said. “I was a little French kid missing home and speaking French. Between (Vincent) the Frenchman and my experience he was very good for me, I think he made my time there better and prepared me to be a professional. A very good man and a good coach.”
In a game in which Boldy had two goals and an assist and Brock Faber had three assists, Boldy set up Rossi's only game-winning goal inside the post. When the second Rossi realized he had scored, he pointed to Fleury and then walked towards center ice as did his teammates from the bench so they could all meet Fleury.
“Everything he's done so far has been unbelievable,” Rossi said. “You want to cheer him on.”
Faber stared at Fleury with a smile on his face in the celebratory post-match locker room while speaking to reporters.
“He's one of the greatest hockey players to ever play the game, but you'd never know it if you didn't know who he was,” Faber said. “He's a great leader on this team and one of my best teammates ever. It's really surreal. It doesn't seem quite real to me just looking at him and I know that when I was 12, 13, 14 years old, I started really playing hockey, I was watching… “This guy. This is crazy. Surreal.”
Fleury grew up a hardcore Canadian and was beloved by Roy, especially the butterfly style he tried to imitate. He called it an honor to tie the 'Saint Patrick' in the regular season W.C.
But Fleury said: “At that moment I was happy to get the win with the guys.”
Fleury stopped 25 of 28 shots in a game of which Columbus attempted 67. But the Wild fought back hard in a game they desperately wanted to win to snap a four-game skid heading into a home-and-home affair with the rival Dallas Stars.
Wild players blocked 26 shots, led by five each from Faber and Jake Middleton.
They survived after Cole Selinger completed a hat-trick with 5:45 left in regulation after John Merrill was awarded a penalty kick. This was the third time Selinger had scored a go-ahead goal. Boldy responded to two of his seven shots to give him 12 goals in his last 19 games.
“We were playing very well, and I thought from start to finish, we had a lot of chances tonight,” Fleury said. “Special teams was good. Obviously they scored the third goal shortly before the end of the game, so it's a little disappointing again. But I like the way the guys battled until the end.”
Fleury joked about the “little bit of fear” he and the team faced when Danforth flew down the right wing with Faber on his tail as Fleury dived through the crease. Fleury didn't get a piece of the ball, but there's no doubt that Faber's discomfort and Fleury's sudden appearance led to Danforth pushing that would-be goal 4-2 to the left. Moments later, the score was 3-3 thanks to the team of Hartmann and Johansson.
“From where I was, I thought they were scoring,” Johansson said. “Sometimes you need those lucky chances, and we've been working hard on that recently, so it was good to get those two points.
“I mean… (the glove) that saved (Fleury) got there at the end, it's fun to watch, and a good way for him to finish second.”
“That was a great series of events,” coach John Hynes added.
One of the coolest parts of the game was seeing the rebounds from Boldy and Rossi after Thursday's subpar plays against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Neither of them had a single shot. They each had one shot attempt. Part of the growing process for young gamers is learning how to ditch bad games and move on to the next one.
Boldy scored 3 points and 11 shot attempts. Rossi got the winner, saving one in the third period when Fleury came out of the net and made a play to help the overtime transition before his goal.
“We have a lot of older leaders here and they always talk to us as young people,” Rossi said. “It doesn't always go your way. There are always ups and downs, and it's important how you handle your downs.
That's when Rossi looked at Flory and smiled widely.
“Look at this guy,” Rossi said before mentioning the fact that teammate Brandon Duhem joked with him last month that what the 39-year-old Fleury is doing at 50 is impressive. “I know Dewey says he's 50, but to me, he looks like 25.”
Boldi added: “He still adheres to it, regardless of what Dhaimi says.” He still has it, for sure.”
He certainly showed it in Chennakhov's robbery, which made the young man shake his head and smile in disbelief.
“I like making tackles like that, it's fun,” Fleury said. “I feel like I'm still a little kid. … Just fun hockey.
Fleury has had to talk about passing Roy since training camp. He can't wait to put this chase into second place in NHL wins behind him.
Maybe that could happen Monday night in St. Paul against Dallas.
“We've lost a few of them recently as well, so that question always comes up every day,” Fleury said. “Yes, it would be nice to have another one.”
(Top photo: Aaron Doster/USA Today)
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