COLUMBUS, Ohio — Pascal Vincent has known Marc-Andre Fleury since he was 15 years old.
“I had hair back then,” Vincent quipped.
Under the recommendation of head scout Yanick Lemay, Vincent, then general manager and coach of the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, chose Fleury in the first round of the QMJHL draft, but the plan was to send him back to midget until he was 16. It was Fleury’s first time away from home, Cape Breton was 14 hours from Montreal and it was an English-speaking city for a French Canadian who spoke little English, so he was shy and homesick despite the trademark smile even then.
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“I was like, ‘We have to send him back,’ but we couldn’t,” Vincent recalled. “Every practice he was just the best guy out there, and we had to keep him. And we kept him. And he just took off.”
Twenty years after Vincent’s Screaming Eagles graduated Fleury to be the No. 1 pick in the NHL, Fleury tied his childhood idol, Patrick Roy, for the second-most regular-season victories in NHL history with his junior coach from 2000 to 2004 standing behind the opposite bench.
Honestly, what are the chances of that?
🚨 ROSSI ENDS IT 🚨
The @mnwild complete the comeback on an @Energizer overtime winner from Marco Rossi! pic.twitter.com/Kp1ixTVTR8
— NHL (@NHL) January 7, 2024
Marco Rossi’s first career overtime winner after Marcus Johansson forced overtime with 1:31 left gave the Minnesota Wild a dramatic 4-3 win over Vincent’s Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena. And to say Vincent was proud to watch a vintage “Flower” performance for his 551st career victory is an understatement.
Fleury loves to make his starts fun and entertaining, and this was for him when he raced back into the crease to try to stop Justin Danforth’s empty net attempt (Danforth missed wide) 12 seconds before Ryan Hartman set up Johansson’s squeaker through Daniil Tarasov. And in overtime, just 16 seconds before a Matt Boldy-to-Rossi winner, Fleury made a spectacular glove save to rob Yegor Chinakhov.
𝗙𝗟𝗢𝗪𝗘𝗥!!! 🌸🌸🌸 pic.twitter.com/cqtTGKAHyk
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) January 7, 2024
As Boldy said, “That game’s over if he doesn’t make that save.”
And as Vincent told The Athletic in a hallway after the game while he reunited with the goalie he once coached as a teenager, “When he made that save in overtime, I was like, ‘OK, Flower. Just take it.’ He’s the best.”
Vincent can talk about Fleury for hours.
“He’s going right to the Hall of Fame,” Vincent said. “Beyond the hockey side, he’s just an amazing person coming from a great family. Really happy for him.”
It doesn’t surprise Vincent that Fleury is only the fourth goalie in NHL history to surpass 1,000 games and soon will only be behind Martin Brodeur for most wins in league history. Vincent learned Fleury’s competitiveness as a 16-year-old.
“One game I pull him,” Vincent said. “I can’t remember why, if it was the team or him. Back then we didn’t have the technology that we have today, so the (backup goalie) on the bench had to take some stats and the shots and the locations of the shots. So I pulled him, I can’t remember, if it was the second (or third) period.
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“Anyhow … after the game I looked at the sheet and there’s nothing on that piece of paper. And that’s his job to do it. He got pulled, but you still got to do your job on the bench. He wrote something like, ‘I’m not a statistician, I’m a goalie.’ And I was mad, but I loved it. It told me a lot about his character. He wanted to be a goalie. He was mad he didn’t stay in the net. And we had a hard conversation.”
Fleury looks back at those days with fondness and knows how special it is that the person who mentored him as a kid got to be part of this special night even if it meant a defeat for the young team he guides.
“When I went to Cape Breton, I was like 15, 16. I was away from home. It was all English,” Fleury said. “I was a French little kid missing home and speaking French. And between (Vincent’s) French and my billet was also very good to me, I think he made my time there better and he prepared me to be a professional. Very kind man and a good coach.”
In a game in which Boldy scored two goals and an assist and Brock Faber had three assists, Boldy set up Rossi’s one-time winning goal just inside the post. The second Rossi realized he had scored, he pointed at Fleury and then beelined for center ice as did his teammates flocking from the bench so they could all meet Fleury.
“Everything he has done so far, it’s just incredible,” Rossi said. “You want to cheer for him.”
Faber stared at Fleury with a smile on his face in the celebratory postgame dressing room as he talked to reporters.
“He’s one of the greatest hockey players to ever play the game, but you’d never know that if you didn’t know who he was,” Faber said. “He’s a helluva leader on this team and one of the best teammates I’ve ever had. It’s really surreal. It doesn’t quite feel real for me just looking at him knowing when I was 12, 13, 14, starting to really get into hockey, I was watching this guy. It’s crazy. Surreal.”
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Fleury grew up a Canadiens diehard and idolized Roy, especially his butterfly style that he tried to emulate. He called it an honor to tie “Saint Patrick” in regular-season W’s.
But, Fleury said, “In the moment I was happy to get the win with the boys.”
Fleury stopped 25 of 28 shots in a game Columbus attempted 67. But the Wild battled exhaustively in a game they desperately wanted to win to snap a four-game skid heading into a home-and-home with division rival the Dallas Stars.
Wild players blocked 26 shots led by five each from Faber and Jake Middleton.
And they survived after Cole Sillinger completed a hat trick with 5:45 left in regulation after Jon Merrill took a tripping penalty. It was the third time Sillinger scored a go-ahead goal. Boldy answered on two of his seven shots to give him 12 goals in the past 19 games.
Matt Boldy is also greedy for that hatty okay! pic.twitter.com/taEGcHboOx
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 7, 2024
“We were playing so good I thought tonight from start to finish with the puck, had a lot of chances,” Fleury said. “Special teams were good. Obviously they scored that third one with not much time left in the game, so it’s a little frustrating again. But I love how the guys battled to the end.”
Fleury joked about the “little bit of a scare” he and the team faced as Danforth flew down the right wing with Faber on his tail and as Fleury dived through the crease. Fleury didn’t get a piece of the puck, but there’s no doubt Faber’s annoyance and Fleury’s sudden appearance led to Danforth’s pushing that potential 4-2 goal wide left. Moments later, the score was 3-3 thanks to a Hartman and Johansson team-up.
𝗜𝗡𝗖𝗥𝗘𝗗𝗜𝗕𝗟𝗘!!! 𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞 𝗧𝗢 𝗟𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗟!#mnwild #NHL pic.twitter.com/UfPEcgtMAX
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) January 7, 2024
“From where I was, I thought they were scoring,” Johansson said. “Sometimes you need those lucky breaks, and we’ve worked hard to it lately, so it was good to get those 2 points.
“I mean … that (glove) save (Fleury) made there at the end, it’s fun to watch, and a good way for him to tie second place.”
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“That was a big chain of events,” added coach John Hynes.
One of the coolest parts of the game was seeing the rebounds from Boldy and Rossi after subpar games Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Neither had a shot. Each had one shot attempt. Part of the growing process of young players is to learn how to flush poor games and move on to the next one.
Boldy had 3 points and 11 shot attempts. Rossi had the winner, saved a goal in the third period when Fleury was caught out of the net and made the play to help the overtime transition before his goal.
“We have a lot of older guys here that are leaders and they always talk to us as young guys,” Rossi said. “It isn’t always going your way. It’s always ups and downs, and it’s important how you treat your downs.”
That’s when Rossi looked back at Fleury and smiled wide.
“Look at this guy,” Rossi said before bringing up the fact teammate Brandon Duhaime last month kidded that it’s impressive what the 39-year-old Fleury is doing at age 50. “I know Dewey says he’s 50, but for me, he looks like 25.”
Added Boldy, “He’s still got it, no matter what Duhaime says. He’s still got it, for sure.”
551 looks good on ya 🌸#mnwild pic.twitter.com/smpQlKU8dO
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) January 7, 2024
He sure showed so on the Chinakhov thievery that had the youngster shaking his head and smiling in disbelief.
“I love making saves like that, that are fun,” Fleury said. “I feel like a kid a bit still. … Just a fun hockey game.”
Fleury has had to talk about passing Roy since training camp. He cannot wait to put this chase to No. 2 in NHL wins behind him.
Maybe that can happen Monday night in St. Paul against Dallas.
“We’ve been losing a few lately, too, so every day it’s always a question,” Fleury said. “Yeah, it’ll be nice to get one more.”
(Top photo: Aaron Doster / USA Today)