Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury: 'I feel bad for the fans'
Fourteen goals allowed in two games to begin the season is not what the Minnesota Wild had in mind, but that's reality as Marc-Andre Fleury and company have been gouged by the Rangers and Kings and are now staring down a Monday matchup with the defending champion Avalanche.
Saturday's 7-6 home loss featured plenty of offense from Minnesota as Mats Zuccarello, Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, Jacob Middleton, Marcus Foligno and Sam Steele all found the back of the net, but Fleury and backup Filip Gustavsson couldn't stop anything.
Fleury, who gave up all seven goals in Minnesota's season opener against the Rangers, surrendered four goals and was pulled after the first period. He made just 10 saves on 14 shots. Gustavsson made 17 saves and allowed three goals.
“I’d boo myself,” Fleury said. “I was not good. I feel bad for the fans. I feel bad for my teammates. I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to step up and give our team a chance to win. I think there’s some tough goals. A few of them. Still, I’ve got to make some saves. Especially the stupid last one there.”
But it's not all on the Minnesota goalies.
“Sometimes we play defense like we’re a ... junior team. It’s the whole team. We’ve got to sharpen up,” Zuccarello said.
"Everybody struggled, right? You get seven goals scored on, your team struggles," Wild head coach Dean Evason said. "To pin it on one guy or one guy didn't play well from the goalie out … everybody didn't play well, or else we would have not given up seven goals."
Fleury has allowed 11 goals on 49 shots. His next chance to get back on track is Monday against the Avalanche, who smoked the Blackhawks with five goals in their first game and then fell 5-3 at Calgary on Thursday.
Colorado will be on three full days rest when they play the Wild Monday night.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.