The Minnesota Wild were eliminated from Stanley Cup playoff contention on Friday night, and although there will be plenty of discussion about how things went down in this series, we’ll table that discussion for another time. That’s because on Friday night, following the Wild’s elimination at the hands of the Dallas Stars, many fans were openly wondering about the future of veteran goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
Fleury remains under contract with the Wild for the 2023-24 NHL season, having signed a two year deal with the Wild in the summer of 2022, but is coming off a rather underwhelming season by his standards. Fleury was just OK during the regular season with a 2.85 goals against average and a .908 save percentage, but even those underwhelming numbers fell off a cliff come the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Fleury recorded a brutal 7.00 goals against average and a .774 save percentage in his lone start in Game 2, and although he would appear once more in relief of Filip Gustavsson he finished the 2023 playoffs with a 5.48 goals against average and a .811 save percentage.
On Friday, following the conclusion of Game 6 and his team’s outster from the playoffs, Fleury appeared to admit that all of this had taken a toll on him when he openly spoke about the end of his career in the NHL.
“That might be it,” said Fleury of playing out the final year of his contract.
It’s not hard to see why such a poor season would take a toll on a proud Stanley Cup champion like Fleury, but hopefully a more successful campaign in the 2023-24 season will leave the usually jovial netminder feeling rejuvenated.
