After Fleury trade, eyes turn to Robin Lehner as Golden Knights starting goalie
Fleury #Fleury
AP
Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Robin Lehner (90) looks on after giving up a goal to the Colorado Avalanche in the second period of Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup second-round playoff series Sunday, May 30, 2021, in Denver. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey)
Wednesday, July 28, 2021 | 2 a.m.
The Marc-Andre Fleury era with the Golden Knights is over. The net now belongs to the man long expected to take it.
Robin Lehner’s arrival in February of 2020 sparked plenty of questions about Fleury’s future, as did his extension last October. The Golden Knights punted on the goalie decision last year, keeping both of them, but this year there just wasn’t enough cap space to go around.
Fleury was shipped to Chicago in a salary dump, and the Golden Knights will turn to Lehner as their starting goalie or next season and beyond. And despite all the shock and anger understandably flowing through the Golden Knights fanbase, they’ll be reminded soon that the new undisputed No. 1 goalie is pretty darn good.
Lehner has been an elite goaltender running on three seasons now. Since 2018-19, he leads the NHL with 28.78 goals saved above expected (according to Evolving Hockey) and his .923 save percentage ranks second. He’s won the Jennings Trophy, given to the goalie or goalies who allow the fewest goals in the league, twice with two teams.
He was held to 19 games in 2020-21 because of a concussion, turning in a .913 save percentage and 2.29 goals-against average. It followed a postseason in 2019-20 where he started 16 of Vegas’ 20 games, allowed fewer than two goals per game to lead the team to the Western Conference Final.
He’s spent his last three years as part of a near 50-50 split in goal — with Thomas Greiss in New York, Corey Crawford in Chicago, and Fleury in Vegas — but looks like he’ll see a bigger workload next season. While McCrimmon said the Golden Knights will look to acquire another NHL goalie, he repeatedly stressed that would be a backup, a word no one on the team used to describe either Fleury or Lehner in the last two years.
“We are quite comfortable with Robin as a real good starter and his workload will reflect that,” general manager Kelly McCrimmon said. “But at the same time we want Robin to be at his very best and I feel strongly for your starter to be at his very best, you have to have a backup that you can trust, that can get you wins and can allow you to use your starter to the best of his ability.”
McCrimmon said the league is “moving away” days of a goalie playing 60 or more games. If Lehner plays 55 games, that still leaves 27, or about a third, of the games to a backup.
Free agents like James Reimer, Jonathan Bernier and Devan Dubnyk could be options, as could recently bought-out goalies like Braden Holtby and Pete DeBoer’s former San Jose starter Martin Jones.
Lehner, it should be reminded, had nothing to do with Fleury’s exit. He was traded here in 2020 and jumped at the opportunity to sign an extension in the fall — grabbing the long-term security he’s never had in the NHL. That Vegas chose to keep him and move Fleury should not be held against him, despite what a vocal minority of fans on social media might think.
The clock was ticking on Fleury’s time in Las Vegas from the time the Golden Knights acquired Lehner. He’s younger, cheaper, signed for longer and the Golden Knights are making the calculated wager he’ll be better over the next few years than the Vezina Trophy winner they just traded away.
Lehner was the first goalie in Vegas history that was a realistic long-term successor to Fleury. Now that Fleury is gone. Lehner is both the goalie of the present and the future.