PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – He didn’t want to look up at the tribute video, Marc-Andre Fleury was afraid to do what he ended up doing in the locker room when asked about his last game in Pittsburgh. Tear up and find it hard to compose himself.
“Hard to believe, it’s the last time,” Fleury said stopping a first time to gather his emotions.
“Told you I was going to start. It’s hard to believe. So appreciative from the bottom of my heart. What everybody has done for me over the years.”
As he fiddled with his hat and slowly bobbed up and down not wanting to look up while sitting at his locker, he would finally lift his head with a smile and watery eyes and in his Fleury way said:
“Nobody else wants to talk?”
That broke the ice for Fleury as he made his way through another final event in Pittsburgh. It also helped that before morning skate on Tuesday former teammate Max Talbot played a prank on him, taping up his equipment up in a ball and placing a cup of water perilously leaning on his helmet on the shelf above his head.
While he won’t play against him, as Talbot previously retired, he warned his shushing teammate that he knows where he lives.
On the ice he gave up three goals, the hardest part was really during the first break in the action.
“It definitely gives you some butterflies,” Fleury said. “At that first time out, they showed a video. I didn’t want to look. The last time I was here, they showed a video. It made me emotional. They were on the power play, I was like ‘just go, drop the puck’.”
He said during that previous tribute video he had watery eyes and ‘couldn’t see (anything)’.
The 39-year-old said he played ok. He said you always want to stop them all and he never really was comfortable on the ice Tuesday night given all the memories that flooded the last couple of days.
Even during the game, he had a reminder of his first Stanley Cup victory. He came out of the net to make a shoulder save at 18:12 on Lars Eller. He thought about the shoulder save he made late in Game 7 in Detroit to secure the Pens third championship in 2009.
He would also do a signature snow angel and a kiss off the post for old-time sake.
Fleury would take a last lap around the ice after the game as the remaining fans at PPG Paints Arena chanted his name.
Hard to believe 21 years has passed since the Pens took their first step toward three titles by drafting an 18-year-old goalie from Sorel, Quebec. While there were ups and downs, he couldn’t be more thankful for how it turned out.
“Probably my last time here,” Fleury said. “Crazy day, but definitely happy with the result.”
He probably wasn’t just referring to the Wild’s 5-3 win, but the result of a Hall of Fame hockey career that started here.