Fleury for Hart Trophy?

Marc Andre Fleury, though a great goaltender is not the best goaltender in hockey in my opinion. Statistically, he is rarely in the top ten, despite two trips to the Finals and a Stanley Cup ring to his credit. And for the month of October 2011, he was not even the best goaltender on the Penguins, that was Brent Johnson. However, since November 12th, when he got his groove back, I do not think that there has been a player more valuable to his team than Fleury. He will not win the Vezina Trophy awarded to the league's best goaltender, that will likely go to Roberto Luongo of Vancouver. The Hart Trophy, voted on the Professional Hockey Writers Association is given to the player deemed MOST VALUABLE TO HIS TEAM. With the Penguins losing 303 man games to injury this season, and many of those games being lost by critical players, the fact that the Penguins are playing tonight for a share of the Conference lead is a testament to the value of Fleury. The number of man games lost is only 8th in the league, but nobody is missing the firepower of the Penguins over that time. Consider that the entire model of the Penguins was built strenth down the middle. Crosby, Malkin and Staal are supposed to create matchup nightmares for the opposition and MAF is supposed to stop just enough pucks for that strength in the middle to win most games. Well, those 3 centers have played 4 periods of hockey together this season, so the Penguins are not here due to the heroics of those guys. They are not here because of they have filled the net with pucks in the absence of the likes of Staal, Crosby, Malkin, Kunitz, Letestu, Jeffrey, and now Cooke for extended periods. They are here because they committed to team defense and Marc Andre Fleury has put the team on its back, and allowed them to win games, or at least steal points in many games in which they could not muster more than 2-3 goals.

Listen the odds are against Fleury as the Hart is almost always given the scoring leader or at least the man with the most goals. Since 1980, or 30 years it has only been given to two goaltenders, Dominik Hasek in 1997 and 1998, and to Jose Theodore in 2002. In 2000, they gave it to defenseman Chris Pronger, and on the other 26 occasions they gave it to a high scoring forward. To add to the difficulties, at least this season, there seems to be an anti Penguins bias. The national pundits tend to talk about Jonathan Toews, Henrik Sedin, and Corey Perry, all great players when the speak of Hart Trophy front runners. They are all worthy of consideration. Sedin leads the league with 96 points, Toews has 71 points and 31 goals, ( only 5 more points more than Crosby and one LESS goal despite Crosby being out 3 months), and Corey Perry is red hot, with 44 goals and 86 points to lead a late season charge for Anaheim into the playoff mix in the western conference. I think that Fleury still has meant more to his club than all three of those guys THIS YEAR given the loss of such high end talent. The Penguins are also in better position than two of those three teams as a result of Fleury's heroics, Vancouver being the exception. Any of those guys winning it over Fleury would be typical of the league based on the above referenced statistics. The player who gets mentioned for the Hart that rubs me wrong though is Carey Price. Yes, he did take the reigns BACK from last year's playoff hero, Jaroslav Halak, and has had a great year as well. Statistically he and Fleury are very similar, both in a 5 way for second in the league with 34 wins behind Luongo's 35. Fleury has a slightly better GAA at 2.28 v 2.40 for Price. While Price has a slightly better save percentage at .922 to .920 for Fleury, and he has 8 shutouts to Fleury's 3. Fleury has helped his offensively challenged team to 7 extra points by posting a 7-2 record in shootouts and a .829 save percentage in them. Price has helped steal 3 extra points by way of shootout, going 3-2 with a .750 save percentage. Statistically, they are similar, but the Penguins are poised to potentially win the East with the injury issues they have had to key players, while the Canadiens are 11 points behind them, while suffering far fewer man games lost to key players. Hey, after a 7-8-1 start Fleury has rebounded to help the Penguins post a 38-15-7 record, and a 14 for 15 winning streak that started on 11-12 against Tampa. In this critical week against great competition, Fleury has posted 4 wins, all four by shootout, and the last three by scores of 2-1 against the Flyers, 1-0 against the Devils and 2-1 against Florida. He allowed one shootout goal, and post an amazing .61 GAA and .975 save percentage during that span. Those 6 point all but ensured the Pens the fourth seed, and kept them in the mix to win the conference. On a final note, I think it should matter who ELEVATES their normal game when necessary when considering the value to an organization, and Fleury has done that too. His career GAA is 2.74 and his career save percentage is .908. This season despite a start that was HORRENDOUS, his season GAA is 2.28 and his season save percentage is .920. When Malkin was lost for the season on top of Crosby, and the other injuries the hockey world figured the BEST the Penguins could do was SURVIVE due to their fast start and hang on to a low playoff seed. Instead, they have THRIVED, stealing points in low scoring losses, getting two points in low scoring wins and shootouts. For my money, there is no bigger reason for this than #29, and for that he deserves STRONG consideration for the Hart. Though I am sure he will not even get any real consideration, that does not change the fact that there is nobody who has been more valuable to his team this season than Marc Andre Fleury, even if Pittsburgh fans are the only ones to know it.