This had the subtlety of a Mike Tyson roundhouse.
Marc-Andre Fleury’s agent, Allan Walsh, tweeted a photo of his client with a sword in his back. Written on the sword was “DeBoer”, the last name of Las Vegas Golden Knights coach Peter DeBoer.
Clearly, Walsh is not happy that Fleury will not be in the net to start the semi-finals of the Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup playoffs on Sunday night. Fleury has reportedly stayed with the team and Las Vegas is not expected to comment on the post.
Fleury, who lost his job to former island goaltender Robin Lehner, has been a big part of the Las Vegas franchise. He led it to the Stanley Cup final in its first season and was a top-five finisher for the Vezina Trophy the past two seasons. But this year, he had his lowest savings percentage (.905) since 2009-10, while he was a member of the Penguins, and lost his father in November.
Lehner was initially hired to back Fleury from the Blackhawks in February and has flourished for Las Vegas, noting a .904 saving percentage in the postseason, compared to Fleury’s .886.
“Chicago had two No. 1 goaltenders,” Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon told ESPN. “We liked the make-up of our team. We did not feel like we had enough support behind Marc-Andre. That was the motivation for the deal. ”
In round-robin play, Lehner excelled in two starts, while Fleury allowed four goals against just 17 shots, leading Las Vegas to start Lehner in the opener of its quarterfinal series against the Blackhawks. He went on to start with four of the five games in the series victory.
“A difficult decision if you have two quality starting goalies,” said Knights coach DeBoer at the time. ‘The best way to explain it is that it was not’ Flower ‘did not. It’s what Robin has been doing since they’ve been here. I think he’s 5-0 in the numbers. But not just the numbers. I think he came here, after the break in our camp and lights were out in all our controls. This is not the case when one man does not get the job. This is just one man who is just fantastic. ”
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