Flower Will Bloom Again; Fleury Re-signs With Wild

For most of this season, former Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender and fan favorite Marc-Andre Fleury has been a little coy about whether he would retire. Well, he’s not done yet.

Fleury on Wednesday signed a one-year contract extension to return to the Minnesota Wild for $2.5 million. He will turn 40 during 2024-25, his 21st season.

He is expected to make one more start this season, in Minnesota’s finale on Thursday.

The Penguins drafted Fleury first overall in 2003, and he was a core player and part of three Stanley Cup titles before he went to Vegas in the 2017 expansion draft and helped the Golden Knights get to a Stanley Cup final. He also has played for Chicago.

Now Penguins fans will have a chance to see the affable, always smiling goalie from a far for another season, and perhaps he will get a chance to face them again.

Fleury’s Hall of Fame resume is so extensive that PHN borrowed the roundup from NHL.com:

Fleury has played in 1,024 career games (994 starts) across 20 NHL seasons (2003-04, 2005-24), posting a 561-329-96 record with a 2.60 goals-against average (GAA), a .912 save percentage (SV%) and 75 shutouts. The 6-foot-2, 185-pound native of Sorel, Quebec, ranks first all-time among NHL goaltenders in shootout wins (65), second in wins, third in saves (26,563), fourth in games played and minutes played (59,220:38) and is the NHL’s active leader in all five categories. Fleury played in the 1,000th game of his NHL career vs. Winnipeg on Dec. 31, 2023, joining Martin Brodeur (1,266 games), Roberto Luongo (1,044 games) and Patrick Roy (1,029 games) as the only netminders in NHL history to reach the milestone, and recorded his 552nd career win with a 5-0 victory over the New York Islanders on Jan. 15, 2024, moving past Roy (551 career wins) for second-most in NHL history. The four-time NHL All-Star (2011, 2015, 2018, 2019) owns at least one regular-season victory over all 32 NHL franchises and was awarded the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goaltender following the 2020-21 season, when he posted a 26-10-0 record with six shutouts, a 1.98 GAA and a .928 SV%.