Milestone Night For Flower

When you get taken first overall in a draft in sports, there's usually pretty high praise and high expectations surrounding your game. For Marc Andre Fleury, that was the case when he was taken first overall in the 2003 NHL Entry draft. Now, here we sit over twenty years later, and Fleury sits at #2. After shutting out the Islanders 5-0 last night, it gave Fleury career win #552, good for second most in the history of the league, only trailing Martin Brodeur.

Fleury is a long shot at catching Marty, but passing Patrick Roy for second on the list is a pretty big deal.

Taken first overall in 2003, Fleury has really made a name for himself between the pipes in this league. Played thirteen years with the Penguins, winning 375 games and three Stanley Cups in the Steel City.  He then spent his next four years in Vegas, helping getting the Golden Knights on the map. In Vegas, he won his only Vezina trophy and 117 games. He then went to Chicago for a year where he won 19 games in a Hawks uniform. Finally he landed here in Minnesota, picking up 41 more wins in three years with the Wild. In total, he has started 1,007 games in the NHL (and counting as of this writing), becoming just the 4th goalie in history to do so. He joined Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo as the only ones to do so.

What Fleury has done in his career has been nothing short of amazing. He's been hailed around the league as being a fantastic teammate, which speaks just as much volumes about his career as anything he's done between the pipes.

Some of the saves that Fleury has made during his career have defied logic. He's been that good. There was a stretch when he first got to Vegas where he really carried that team and kind of set the bar for what quality goaltending should be for the Golden Knights. He first started doing that in Pittsburgh as well. Believe me the bar was already set high with what guys like Tom Barrasso did in that city. He took that bar and moved it up to an even higher level. Even now, eight years after he was taken by Vegas in the Expansion draft, the Penguins still haven't found the right guy to fill his skates and its doubtful they ever will.

Congratulations Fleury on becoming the second winningest goalie in the history of the league!