Chicago Blackhawks: Marc-Andre Fleury saves the day in win

The Chicago Blackhawks are on a bit of a roll. The Edmonton Oilers slowed them down a bit on Saturday night to end their four-game winning streak. That was an example of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl showing their true powers though as they knew they could bounce back the next night against the Vancouver Canucks.

Well, they did bounce back in terms of the fact that they won the game. However, it wasn’t a very well-played game by Chicago. Marc-Andre Fleury’s remarkable play in the net was the main reason that they won the hockey game.

Fleury made 40 saves on 40 shots to give the Hawks the 1-0 shutout win. Vancouver made many great plays to create high-danger chances for themselves and Fleury was a brick wall. You always need good goaltending to win but Fleury went above and beyond in this one.

Now, thanks to the goalie, they have won five of their last six games. Derek King is 5-1-0 in his coaching tenure with the Blackhawks right now. There have been a few wins that they stole in that bunch but good teams do that.

Marc-Andre Fleury is the most important player on the Chicago Blackhawks.

The Blackhawks made a good move when they acquired Marc-Andre Fleury over the summer. He is one of the league’s all-time greatest goalies and deserves some faith. Things didn’t go well early on but most goalies would have failed on this team earlier in the year.

He may not defend his Vezina Trophy this year but he doesn’t need to do that. He just needs to be a very solid player so that the team has the chance to win. He has never missed the playoffs in his entire career and he is hoping that this isn’t the first.

The Hawks only needed one goal to support Fleury’s shutout effort. Brandon Hagel finally broke the scoreless tie at 4:12 of the third period. The goal assisted by Erik Gustafsson and Dylan Strome ended up being the game-winner and only score thanks to Fleury’s shutout victory.

Seeing Fleury play like this is amazing. He is truly one of the nice guys in the NHL that has had so much success. This guy has a lot of fans from around the league that will always love him no matter what. If the Hawks dig out of this hole, you’ll know that he was the biggest reason why. He has absolutely no quit in his game.

Fleury and Hawks close out this road trip on Tuesday night against the Calgary Flames. They are a very good team as well and could be a very tough test. We can only hope that Fleury does what he needs to do and keep the opponent from scoring.