One of the biggest questions surrounding the 2013-14 Pittsburgh Penguins is goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. For the third straight season, the netminder had a playoff melt-down. However, he has the vote of confidence of captain Sidney Crosby.
"I know the goalie that he is, and I know it doesn't take much," Crosby said, according to NHL.com. "When you look at last year, it's one or two games in that series against the [New York] Islanders, and obviously the coaches have decisions to make. As a goalie you can't afford that. That's the realistic way of looking at it. As a [forward or defenseman] you can have a bad shift, but as a goalie, if you let in a bad goal everyone is looking at it."
The netminder had a solid 2012-13 season and posted a 2.39 goals against average and .916 save percentage in 33 games. He started in the net for Pittsburgh against the New York Islanders, shutting out the team in game one. However, he allowed four or more goals in the ensuing three games and was pulled in favor of Thomas Vokoun in game five. Vokoun shutout the Islanders and maintained the mantle as Pittsburgh's goalie for the remainder of the playoff run. Fleury got another shot in net during the Boston series but was unable to help his team bounce back from an eventual sweep.
"A couple of games do not define a season," Crosby said. "He had a really good regular season, and the start of the playoffs he was good. A couple of games, the momentum changes, that's how it works. But if you look at the whole season [in 2012-13], he was good and he bailed us out of a lot of games.
"It's not like he has to redefine his game and prove to everyone he can play," Crosby added. "He had a couple of bad games and unfortunately there is scrutiny that comes along with it, but I think he's more than capable of coming back even stronger even through all that."