Fleury stops 19 for Wild, loses likely final game against Penguins

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Marc-Andre Fleury made 19 saves for the Minnesota Wild in likely his final game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, a 3-1 loss at Xcel Energy Center on Sunday.

Fleury won the Stanley Cup three times (2009, 2016, 2017) in 13 seasons with Pittsburgh after being selected with the No. 1 pick in the 2003 NHL Draft. He has the most wins (375), shutouts (44) and best goals-against average (2.58) in Penguins history.

"I feel like I'm going to hear about this for a long time,” Fleury said of allowing Sidney Crosby to score the game-winning goal. “He still talks about his goal in Juniors against me. Lucky too. Missed his shot and it hit (Brock Faber’s) stick. It's like, are you kidding me, this guy. I don't know, I still played for the win. That is what matters, right? That is what [annoyed me] the most, losing that game."

It was Fleury’s 1,015th career start, passing Roberto Luongo for second most in NHL history (Martin Brodeur, 1,251).

“I think it’s fun to compete (against him),” Crosby said. “He’s probably saved a lot more than I’ve scored against him, but definitely a fun competition there. That definitely made me better, and having him as a teammate did, too. It’s one of those things that you get out there and you compete, you try to have fun with it. But I really enjoyed having him on our team.”

Crosby scored twice, and Evgeni Malkin scored for Pittsburgh (25-31-10), which had lost four straight and eight of nine. Tristan Jarry made 29 saves in his first start since Jan. 14, a 4-2 loss against the Seattle Kraken.

“I thought the guys were committed,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “They competed hard, they did the little things: we won draws, we got clears, we made the entries tough. When you do those three things, as we always say, you limit zone time. When Minnesota established zone time, I thought we did a good job of protecting the good ice.”

Jarry, who earned his first win since Dec. 23, was placed on waivers Jan. 15 and assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League on Jan. 16. He went 6-5-1 in 12 games in the AHL before being recalled by Pittsburgh on March 3.

“Having not played an NHL game for a month and a half, you’re nervous, you have those nerves, you have that excitement,” Jarry said. “I think anyone would, no matter the circumstance, but it's having that feeling and using that feeling and using it in a good way. I think it brings a lot of energy to my game.”

Ryan Hartman scored for Minnesota (36-24-4), which has lost two in a row and five of seven.

“The positive side of it is we are getting the chances,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “The last few games they haven’t gone in for us, but I think when you go down the road that you’re talking about, it’s the process of trying to get there. Sometimes you can’t control if it goes in or not, but you want to make sure you’re getting the looks and you’re playing on top of teams and you’re trying to be able to get into scoring areas and getting those looks. Unfortunately, the last two games, they haven’t gone in for us.”

Malkin gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead with three seconds left on the power play at 15:22 of the second period on a feed from Kris Letang down low.

Crosby extended it to 2-0 at 9:21 of the third period with a wrist shot from the left circle.

It was the first time that Crosby and Malkin each scored in the same game against Fleury.

“I was waiting for [Letang] to score,” Pittsburgh forward Bryan Rust said. “But it was cool. Sid and I were joking about it before the game. I was like, ‘Wouldn’t that be nice if you got the game-winner tonight?’ And here we are.”

Hartman cut it to 2-1 on the power play at 14:54, retrieving a center-ice turnover for a 2-on-1 before finishing with a wrist shot in the slot.

“I’m shooting those nine times out of 10,” Hartman said. “But yeah, unfortunately, they got a kind of bad bounce on the second goal there. And I wish that goal was to tie the game up, but we’re chasing it from two goals.”

Crosby scored his second goal of the game into an empty net at 18:47 for the 3-1 final.

NOTES: Crosby became the fourth player in NHL history with 17 career 20-goal seasons with a single franchise. The others: Gordie Howe (22 with the Detroit Red Wings), Alex Ovechkin (20 with the Washington Capitals) and Joe Sakic (17 with the Colorado Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques). … Sullivan earned his 400th career win, becoming the 14th coach in NHL history, and the first born in the United States, to do so.