Marc-André Fleury is actually still a long way from Patrick Roy

Marc-André Fleury, an exceptional athlete and a wonderful human being, has managed to join Roy Patrick in the career wins column. His 551 regular-season wins place him second in NHL history, tied with Roy behind Martin Brodeur’s 691.

However, we all seem to be forgetting one statistic – playoff wins – and Vince Cauchon has kindly brought us back to order by posting this chart via the Twitter/X platform:

Friendly reminder.
Here are the real NHL goaltender career wins rankings.
The one from the playoffs. pic.twitter.com/i1ytzOvEhG

– Vince Cauchon (@VinceCauchon) January 7, 2024

Thanks for the friendly reminder, Vince!

That being said, on the chart published by Cauchon, we can quickly see that Roy is far ahead of Martin Brodeur and Marc-André Fleury in the most important category. Vince stipulates that this playoff ranking is the real one. Absolutely. Roy comes out on top when the importance of the games goes up a notch.

Roy is first in class with 151 wins, followed by Brodeur with 113 and Flower with 92.

But… if we’re going to calculate the “real” rankings with the series rankings, we have to do it for the players’ records too, don’t we? For example, isn’t Alexander Ovechin, who is 64 goals behind Wayne Gretzky, the real numbers (the real rankings)?

For fun, in the playoffs, Ovi threaded the needle 72 times and La Merveille, 122.

I totally understand Vince’s point, I really do, but records are calculated on the basis of regular seasons, and the playoffs are in a different category.

Anyway, congratulations to Marc-André Fleury, who added a 551st win to his monstrous record against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night. He has achieved this feat in 1,003 regular-season games.

On a roll

– Everyone’s talking about Samuel Montembeault!

The Canadiens have been chasing consistency all season. After another incredible performance, it’s clear that goaltender Samuel Montembeault has definitely found it.

“He’s playing like a No. 1.”(@EricEngels) https://t.co/f6f3AcyugB

– Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 7, 2024

– The Montreal Canadiens’ goalies are always among the best.

Team Goaltending – January 7 pic.twitter.com/B2N93sne5k

– JFresh (@JFreshHockey) January 7, 2024

– It’s called the Arber Xhekaj effect.

There’s no denying that putting Arber Xhekaj with Logan Mailloux on the same defensive pair in Laval has been beneficial. The big right-hander has 9 points in 10 games with Xhekaj, in addition to a +3 record. Xhekaj has the same number of points too.

– Anthony Marcotte (@anthonymarcotte) January 7, 2024