The Minnesota Wild have swept the series against the Pittsburgh Penguins this year. They defeated the Penguins 4-2 in Pittsburgh and yesterday afternoon went on a scoring frenzy to win 6-2.
During the month of November the Wild had been struggling to score goals. For whatever reason two of the three times they have scored more than two goals in a game this month came against Pittsburgh. In 11 games this month Minnesota has scored a total of 23 goals. The Penguins have ceded ten of those goals. Marc-Andre Fleury was in net for nine of them. The Wild scored 39.1% of their monthly goal total on Fleury and the teams only played twice.
The decision to start Fleury was fine. The Penguins had a back to back and they wanted to use Matt Murray in a divisional game against New Jersey tonight. If Marc-Andre Fleury wants more starts he is going to have to play better than he has. Since Murray has come back into the lineup Fleury has had one sparkling game against Buffalo (dead last in GF/60 in NHL at 5v5) and a lot of meh.
Matt Murray has played at a 94.5% clip in all situations. During that same time frame Fleury has been at 88.9%.
It certainly hasn't been easy on Fleury to be in a competition. He said so much yesterday. For years he has held the job without anybody nipping at his heels. He spoke about the inactivity and how he has been trying t the more reps so he feels better.
Even if playing more would make him feel better there hasn't been any correlation in his shot volume vs his performance over the years.
It is in both the player and the team's best interest for Fleury to start playing better when it is his turn to start. If he doesn't then the team won't find any suitors via trade and that doesn't help anybody.
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Pittsburgh will take on the New Jersey Devils this evening and it will be the first time that Beau Bennett faces his former team. Injuries were always the issue with Bennett during his Pittsburgh tenure and to this point he has played in 19 of the Devils 20 games. He has a Score-Adjusted Fenwick of 53.06% which is solid and has six points in his last ten games.
Ben Lovejoy is also on the Devils. He has not quite found the same success he did in Pittsburgh as his SAF is only at 46.89%.
The Devils are only three points behind the Penguins in the standings and have a game in hand. They are staying afloat without their superstar winger Taylor Hall who is week to week.
Thanks for reading!