If you'd have told Pittsburgh Penguins fans at the start of the 2015-16 NHL season that they'd have two playoff victories under their belt, but that starting netminder Marc-Andre Fleury hadn't taken part in either game, they'd probably have laughed you out of the room. Sure, Matt Murray was a rising talent with a big frame and Jeff Zatkoff was a decent backup, but there's no way that the Penguins were going to take the lead in a playoff series without Flower on the ice, right?
Wrong. And while Murray and Zatkoff have both managed to backstop the Penguins to wins during their first round bout against the New York Rangers, Pittsburgh fans would probably prefer to see Fleury return sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, it seems like that's not going to happen anytime soon.
"He's not there yet," Fleury's agent, Allan Walsh, said Thursday. "He hasn't had a setback. He's been progressively and incrementally improving on a daily basis.
"He hasn't been getting worse. But he's not 100 per cent yet."
Fleury has now been out of the Penguins lineup since April 2, following his second concussion of the season. Head injuries are always tricky, and there's no knowing how or when a player will progress beyond their symptoms and the Pens have been pretty consistently referring to Fleury as "day-to-day."
Fleury was in the starter's net at Penguins practice last Wednesday but then disappeared. He now hasn't skated for the last two days, has missed the Penguins' first three playoff games and sounds set to miss a fourth.
That's got to be difficult to accept for a guy who has been the unquestioned starter in Pittsburgh since 2006-07.
"He has a tremendous sense of obligation to the team, and it's killing him," Walsh said. "It's killing him."
Fortunately for the Penguins, Murray and Zatkoff have played well in Fleury's absence - and the Rangers have been beset by injuries of their own - so there's been no need to rush the man they call Flower back before he's ready.
However, if Pittsburgh is able to find their way past the Rangers, a matchup against the President's Trophy-winning Washington Capitals likely awaits. At that point, having Fleury back would probably ease the minds of a lot of Pens fans, not to mention head coach Mike Sullivan and GM Jim Rutherford.
