Friday, October 19th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
Pens May Trade for Goalie Help? Why?
Tsn.ca is reporting that Penguin GM Ray Shero is on the hunt for another goalie to complement Marc-Andre Fleury. The names bandied about in the article are Curtis Joseph, Ilya Bryzgalov, Andrew Raycroft, Jaroslav Halak, and Martin Gerber. The issue is that Fleury has obviously not played up to his talent level, but still has an extremely fragile mindset.
If the Penguins traded for one of the goalies mentioned above, it would do nothing but further play with his head, convincing him that the team doesn’t trust him to get the job done. This happened in 2003, the year the Penguins drafted him with the first overall pick, then loaned him to Canada for the World Junior Championships. There, Fleury played excellent hockey until the title game, where he completely fell apart. Fleury then came back to Pittsburgh for a short stint before being sent to Cape Breton (QMJHL), where he posted a 1.98 GAA in 10 regular season games. Then the playoffs came and Fleury collapsed again, posting a 1-3 record and a 3.1o GAA.
The next two seasons, Fleury dominated the AHL, leading to his excellent season last year. Fleury is the Willie Parker of goalies, breaking off the equivalent of a two yard run (see: the beginning of this season) before busting the seventy yard play (some of his performances last year). He has all of the potential to be one of the elite goaltenders in hockey, but plays with his head way too much to reach those heights.
If Shero trades for another goalie, it will be the equivalent of demoting him back to Cape Breton his rookie season and play not only with his head, but with his development as a whole (and, therefore, the team’s future success). Fleury needs to learn to work through stretches like this and simply develop confidence in his abilities. If he accomplishes this, “The Butterfly” will put on performances like he did in the Penguins’ lone playoff win last year, where he stuck a team with superstars Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Jordan Staal on his back and took them to victory.
Fleury is undoubtedly better than he has looked to this point and simply needs one of his monster games to get back on track. As I wrote earlier this month, it is still not time to hit the panic button with Fleury or with this team in general. This team is still .500 despite, like Fleury, playing nowhere near its talent level.
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