Marc-Andre Fleury Appreciation

East Coast Icestyle

Registered User
Mar 6, 2015
3,266
2,320
Nova Scotia, Canada
How much more of an influence did the 80’s era have on Roy’s stats than the dead puck era? Would be interesting to understand.

Just look at the goalie all time stats. Scoring was higher, stats were lower than they are now.

Joseph, Esposito and Belfour are some of the top goalies of all time and have career .906 saves. Vernon, Barrasso, Moog, Fuhr all with save percentages in the .880-.893 range. Further back you go in the 80s/90s it's lower
 

PenguinSuitedUp

Registered User
Oct 2, 2019
697
920
Just look at the goalie all time stats. Scoring was higher, stats were lower than they are now.

Joseph, Esposito and Belfour are some of the top goalies of all time and have career .906 saves. Vernon, Barrasso, Moog, Fuhr all with save percentages in the .880-.893 range. Further back you go in the 80s/90s it's lower
But he also played through the dead puck era, where goals were much harder to come by. So the question is, when goals are normalized to measure every year like for like, which era impacted Roy’s stats more? That’s what would be interesting to see to understand just how much of an impact both eras had, rather than just accounting for the impact of one era and ignoring the rest.
 
Last edited:

OtherThingsILike

Registered User
May 6, 2020
1,486
1,224
Pittsburgh
Wy9BMOM.gif
 

SomeDude

Registered User
Mar 6, 2006
16,911
27,432
Pittsburghish
MAF has been polarizing ever since his gaffe in the WJC gold medal game. I think a lot of people never got over that. He was up and down in the playoffs for the Pens, but he took a lot of the blame when the team just has never cared much about defense. If Neal hadn't had concussed him with a shot to the helmet a week before the 2016 playoffs, giving Murray the opportunity to go on his historic run, who knows what would have happened. I have a feeling more Pens fans will appreciate him as time goes on and the Pens try to find another franchise goalie...they don't exactly grow on trees.
 

East Coast Icestyle

Registered User
Mar 6, 2015
3,266
2,320
Nova Scotia, Canada
But he also played through the dead puck era, where goals were much harder to come by. So the question is, when goals are normalized to measure every year like for like, which era impacted Roy’s stats more? That’s what would be interesting to see to understand just how much of an impact both eras had, rather than just accounting for the impact of one era and ignoring the rest.

Yeah you're right. I suppose a more devoted man than me would divide his career into 2 or 3 sections and compare them all. If you divided it based on goals per game then you'd just get a % of total games to see exactly how much they affected his stats
 

nhlfan9191

Registered User
Aug 4, 2010
19,585
17,344
How much more of an influence did the 80’s era have on Roy’s stats than the dead puck era? Would be interesting to understand.

We’ll never know but I think it’s way more then safe to say prime Roy would have a better save percentage then .913 save percentage playing with scoring being what it was during Fleury’s career.
 

Icarium

Registered User
Feb 16, 2010
3,876
5,486
I think you'll find that post season consistency plagues most goalies in the game past and present. If he wasn't on the pens when he was, you probably don't even really hear about it.

MAF was spectacularly bad in the playoffs from 2010 to 2013 - dead last out of the 25 goalies who played more than 10 games. Yeah, the Pens weren't a great defensive team but they certainly weren't the worst one. Overall he is 20th out of 22 goalies who have played over 50 playoff games since 2003-2004. His regular season numbers aren't spectacular by any stretch of the imagination either, except for the rather pointless wins stat. Yeah, by all accounts he is a great guy and I am happy that he is doing well nowadays because a few months ago he was supposed to become a cap dump that VGK needed to get rid of but he isn't one of the top goalies of his generation. Put him on say Nashville or Calgary and he would be basically Tomas Vokoun with more charisma.
 

radapex

Registered User
Sep 21, 2012
7,766
528
Canada, Eh
You're right, he isn't close. Lets compare his career stats to Roy's once he's reached the same games played, if he does. Wins is a silly stat, considering it's the most team stat I can imagine.



Been to Stanley Cup finals 5 times but won only once as a starter. Lots of goalies have won the Stanley Cup as a starter once.

I don't care about close. He didn't win the Conn Smythe end of story. And I bet if I dug hard enough, I could find arguments against him having it in the pocket at any point during his that particular run.

Shutouts is a nice team stat. Too bad there aren't any awards for getting the most shutouts. Or wins for that matter.
In what way do you define starter? In 2017, Fleury both started and won more games than Murray did while posting a very solid .924 SV%.
 

radapex

Registered User
Sep 21, 2012
7,766
528
Canada, Eh
Has always been a great goalie in season. A guy who has positive -intangibles- and who's above-average on breakaways and shootouts.

Post-Season? Russel Stover chocolates are more predicatable. He can stone the best of them then turn around and cost your team a game or series. When he's on, he's a top tier goalie. When he's off - it's disastrous.
What's interesting about that is that basically a historically bad 3 year stretch has gone to define him as a playoff goalie despite many season of strong playoff play after them. Since he started seeing his sports psychologist prior to the 2013-14 season, Fleury is 36-29 with a 2.40 GAA and .920 SV% in the playoffs. That puts him right between Murray (.921) and Vasilevskiy (.918) in playoff SV% over that period.
 

GeeoffBrown

Registered User
Jul 6, 2007
6,052
3,992
Well, he is 26 wins away from 500 career wins, with a career GAA of 2.56 and save% .913, which is comparable to a certain Patrick Roy (551 wins, 2.54, .910) on a personal level. Awards-wise, MAF isn't close, but that's the case with any NHL goalie ever whose name isn't Martin Brodeur.
If you compare this to Fleury's contemporaries this is above average. So, if you put in Fleury, you have to consider like a dozen different goalies from his era and I just don't see the Hall putting in that many goalies. So, Fleury is probably gonna snub some guys with better stats than him if he gets in the HoF

For example, I would be extremely shocked if Ryan Miller or Mikka Kiprusoff got the call
 
Last edited:

kladorf2005

Registered User
Apr 20, 2018
1,403
1,614
You're right, he isn't close. Lets compare his career stats to Roy's once he's reached the same games played, if he does. Wins is a silly stat, considering it's the most team stat I can imagine.

Been to Stanley Cup finals 5 times but won only once as a starter. Lots of goalies have won the Stanley Cup as a starter once.

I don't care about close. He didn't win the Conn Smythe end of story. And I bet if I dug hard enough, I could find arguments against him having it in the pocket at any point during his that particular run.

Shutouts is a nice team stat. Too bad there aren't any awards for getting the most shutouts. Or wins for that matter.
Hey Mr. Team Stat! Let me give you a team stat argument.

2015-16 season. That Pens team was wretched. So wretched, that they fired their coach mid-season. The only reason the team even made the playoffs that year was because of MAF keeping them afloat for first half of the season. And only reason he wasn't the starter for the playoffs that year was because he got hurt in the final month of the season. That Pens team would not have won the cup w/o MAF standing on his head for first 40+ games.

But please continue with your, "only 1 cup as a starter" and "team stat" arguments. Only when they fit your narrative, of course :thumbu:

EDIT: I also want to point out that Patrick Roy played on a lot better teams than MAF did. Especially when you think about how poorly those Pens teams were constructed defensively. So your argument about his wins/SOs/Sv%/GAA not being comparable to Roy's because they're "team stats" has more holes in it than all of the call girls in Vegas. MAF is 2 shutouts behind Roy. Two. And MAF has played 171 fewer games.
 
Last edited:

pi314

Registered User
Jun 10, 2017
1,079
2,211
Windsor, ON
I always loved Fleury as a human but hated him as the Pens goalie.

You never knew whether you were getting a heroic 47 save shutout performance or 4 soft beach balls that got him pulled in the 2nd period.

His highlight real is sensational.

His personality is one of the best to ever play the game.

But his goaltending alone always made me nervous.

Him and Max Talbot are still two of my favorites.
 

Video Nasty

Registered User
Mar 12, 2017
4,567
7,847
Well, he is 26 wins away from 500 career wins, with a career GAA of 2.56 and save% .913, which is comparable to a certain Patrick Roy (551 wins, 2.54, .910) on a personal level. Awards-wise, MAF isn't close, but that's the case with any NHL goalie ever whose name isn't Martin Brodeur.

I don't like how Fleury has somehow built this narrative where it's pretty clear that he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame, but I did come into this thread with good intentions to answer the question posed.

I can appreciate that teams have found him good enough to hold down a NHL netminder job for 17 seasons now. I also appreciate that he's gotten a little better with age, which helps move the needle a little bit when compared to the many catastrophes he's been a part of. He's obviously likable which will go a long way with voters. He's no Barry Bonds for instance.

Then I read your comment.

Do you really believe that the similarity in some of those numbers means anything?

Fleury has had the benefit of the shootout. Roy had 131 ties. Even if he was below .500, that's at least 65 additional wins one could add to his 551, which would give him 616 wins.

The first 5 seasons of Roy's career had league wide averages of .874, .880, .880, .879, and .881. Roy led the league in Save % in the bolded years with .900, .908, and .912. League wide scoring was 7.94, 7.34, 7.42, 7.48, and 7.36. He sported GAA's of 2.36-2.94 in years where GPG were 7+.

I saw someone else mention that Roy had the benefit of the Dead Puck Era to balance out the higher scoring of his early career. That's barely true. The Dead Puck Era began in his age 32 season and he retired after his age 37 season. Not a lot of time to balance out 650+ games played before age 32.

He led the league in multiple categories throughout his career, he obviously won Vezinas, Smythes, and Cups that he was the starter for and wasn't given a ring for playing backup. In almost every case, he was why his team won. Fleury's teams much much more often than not won in spite of him. Fleury has never won a single individual award. He's finished top 5 in Vezina voting twice. His numbers are roughly the league average during his career. He led a solitary statistical category once (10 shutouts in 2014-2015, year where his GAA was 2.32 and his Save % was .920 and he didn't receive a single Vezina vote).

I'm aware that you're not arguing that Fleury is close to Roy (I hope), but the raw numbers with zero context tell us absolutely nothing in this case.
 

ArGarBarGar

What do we want!? Unfair!
Sep 8, 2008
44,017
11,677
Hey Mr. Team Stat! Let me give you a team stat argument.

2015-16 season. That Pens team was wretched. So wretched, that they fired their coach mid-season. The only reason the team even made the playoffs that year was because of MAF keeping them afloat for first half of the season. And only reason he wasn't the starter for the playoffs that year was because he got hurt in the final month of the season. That Pens team would not have won the cup w/o MAF standing on his head for first 40+ games.

But please continue with your, "only 1 cup as a starter" and "team stat" arguments. Only when they fit your narrative, of course :thumbu:

EDIT: I also want to point out that Patrick Roy played on a lot better teams than MAF did. Especially when you think about how poorly those Pens teams were constructed defensively. So your argument about his wins/SOs/Sv%/GAA not being comparable to Roy's because they're "team stats" has more holes in it than all of the call girls in Vegas. MAF is 2 shutouts behind Roy. Two. And MAF has played 171 fewer games.
Patrick Roy won THREE Conn Smythe trophies while on "better" teams.

Also what do you think shutouts have to say about a goaltender's ability over the course of their career? Are you arguing Fleury is comparable to Roy in terms of ability/career/talent/etc.?
 

Icarium

Registered User
Feb 16, 2010
3,876
5,486
2015-16 season. That Pens team was wretched. So wretched, that they fired their coach mid-season. The only reason the team even made the playoffs that year was because of MAF keeping them afloat for first half of the season. And only reason he wasn't the starter for the playoffs that year was because he got hurt in the final month of the season. That Pens team would not have won the cup w/o MAF standing on his head for first 40+ games.

But please continue with your, "only 1 cup as a starter" and "team stat" arguments. Only when they fit your narrative, of course

You are creating an even more flawed narrative. MAF was good in 2015-2016 but hardly "the only reason" the Pens made the playoffs, considering they ended up second in their division and had a 15–10–3 record when Johnston was fired. It's not like they were like the Ducks of today who basically only win when Gibson stands on his head. Johnston was a bad coach but he didn't make the team quite that bad.

And yes, wins are a team stats which indicates mostly which goalie was lucky enough to play for good teams. Put MAF in say Minnesota and people would laugh out loud at the idea of him making the Hall of Fame.
 

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->