*Photo from The Athletic*
While goalie Robin Lehner has been injured lately, Marc-Andre Fleury has played number one goalie reps, which means he has now started 4 games in a row. He has showed that he is worthy of being the number one goalie. Fleury stopped 30 shots, Max Pacioretty scored the only goal, and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Colorado Avalanche by a 1-0 score on Sunday.
The game's lone goal came at the 1:38 mark of the second period, when Pacioretty scored his 7th goal of the season, assisted by Zach Whitecloud, to give the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead, which then held for the rest of the game.
Golden Knights coach Peter DeBoer said of Fleury's performance that "I think when you look at our schedule and with Robin going down, we've asked him to play a bunch of games in a row here and he's had the energy to do it, and not only do it but do it at a really high level. He's been our best player through this stretch. We've got to get him some rest and get him ready for Tuesday."
A big reason Fleury has been so good, his record is 7-1-0, is how fresh he has been. He no longer has to start 7, 8, or 9 consecutive games because they don't have a reliable backup for Fleury. Now, he has Lehner alongside him, and the two serve as a 1A and 1B goalie combo in Vegas, which in turn eases the workload for both goalies, they won't be burned out by the end of the season. If one goalie gets hurt, then you have another top notch goalie ready to go as a substitute.
Philipp Grubauer started for the Avalanche, and performed spectacularly, saving 23 shots out of 24 that came his way. His only mistake was the Pacioretty shot in the second period that went past him. The Avalanche fell to 7-4-1 with the loss, 3rd place in the NHL's West Division.
The two teams face off again on Tuesday, with Fleury and Grubauer expected to be the goalies again.
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