On Tuesday night, Marc-Andre Fleury made his return to Pittsburgh. Fans and former teammates celebrated the 33-year-old goaltender’s tenure with the Penguins as he marches forward as the face of the Las Vegas Golden Knights franchise.

Whatever is in the cards for Fleury’s future in Las Vegas, his time in the Steel City left a longing impression on a franchise that was in dire need of a purpose when they drafted him in 2003.

In upwards of a decade in Pittsburgh, Fleury awed, frustrated, enamoured and infuriated Penguins fans. His solid performances were always marred by a rich history of messing up in spectacular fashion.

Fleury’s career has mirrored that of a talented athlete in another sport. The recently retired Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo was equal parts Hall-Of-Famer and scapegoat.

Much like the Penguins’ netminder, Romo’s good deeds did not outweigh the bad, nor the bad the good.

Fleury’s time with the Penguins was filled with inconsistency. In the postseason, Fleury helped power the Penguins to several Stanley Cup Finals, held the fort in several series where Sidney Crosby & Evgeni Malkin fell silent, and cost the team in several series where the duo performed.

After 13 years in the league, Fleury has carved out a legacy similar to that of Tony Romo. He’s the best goalie opponents never fear.

The Bad & The Ugly

Fleury’s mishaps all seem to stem from the risky play on the puck he made late during the third period of the gold medal game in the 2004 World Juniors.

With Canada and the United States deadlocked at 3–3, Fleury banked the puck off of his own defenceman and into his own net. The Americans held on to win the medal, and the infamous play has plagued the conversation around Fleury ever since.

In the Penguins’ first trip to the Stanley Cup Finals, Fleury literally tripped his way onto the ice in Game 1, inspiring anything but confidence heading into the team’s first finals appearance in over a decade.

During the four-year stretch that followed the Penguins’ first Stanley Cup win with Sidney Crosby, Fleury didn’t meet expectations in the playoffs. Amid that stretch, Fleury’s save percentage didn’t crack .900 despite performing at a much higher level during the regular season.

The biggest fears of Penguins fans were fully realized during a three-year period where Fleury under-performed in the postseason, allowing a collection of mind-boggling goals along the way.

In the 2011/2012 first-round match-up with the Philadelphia Flyers, Fleury wasted an outstanding performance from the Pittsburgh offence. He allowed 26 goals over 6 games with the intra-state rival, posting an .834 save percentage during the series.

A year later, ‘The Flower’ opened the postseason with a shutout against the New York Islanders before struggling his way through the next three games and yielding the net to backup Tomas Vokoun.

While Fleury straightened out his game in the years since, the memories of bad goals and lost opportunity remained fresh in the mind of Penguins fans. It’s part of what made the Penguins so fun to watch.

Knowing that even when Fleury is on his game, it can all fall apart at any moment gave Pens games an added layer of interest when Fleury was between the pipes.

The Good

Despite spurts of incompetence, Marc-Andre Fleury’s good deeds in Pittsburgh far outweighed the bad. He electrified crowds with stunning saves, helped power the Penguins to several deep postseason runs and earned the love and respect of teammates past and present.

When he was drafted first overall in 2003, the Penguins franchise was failing and desperate to regain the glory they saw in the early ’90s. His arrival in Pittsburgh was the first in a string of high draft picks that would define the next decade of hockey.

After drafting Fleury, the Pens built a young core with Crosby, Malkin, Staal, and Letang. As faces came and went, Fleury was a consistent force in the Penguins locker room.

While Fleury has a well-developed blooper reel from the playoffs, his highlights are just as rich. There was his acrobatic glove save on Alex Ovechkin in 2009, his 54-save performance against Detroit in his first Stanley Cup Final, the insane stick-save against Washington in the recent postseason run and the iconic stop on Niklas Lidstrom to seal the 2009 Stanley Cup for Pittsburgh.

Handing the torch to Matt Murray for the past two Stanley Cup runs was a poetic end to his time sporting the black and yellow and his transition to Las Vegas allowed him a fresh start.

Without the added pressure and expectations that came from playing in Pittsburgh, Fleury is flourishing. He earned his third career All-Star nod and has helped lead the Golden Knights to the top of their division. Whether Fleury and the Knights will continue to thrive remains to be seen, but the move to Las Vegas has breathed new life into Fleury’s career.