Marc-Andre Fleury will get the start in net when the Vegas Golden Knights take on the Anaheim Ducks Sunday evening.
The Vegas Golden Knights play their final road preseason game against Anaheim tonight at 5 PM PT. For the most part, we’ll see about half of the Golden Knights opening night roster playing tonight at the Honda Center. But one name stands out among the rest of the lineup.
The undisputed starting goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury gets the nod tonight and will make his Golden Knights debut. I’ll be very curious to see how Fleury plays under a brand new system under Head Coach Gerard Gallant. Tonight obviously won’t answer that question with it being a preseason game and all, but it’s worth monitoring over the course of the regular season.
We all know Fleury is a workhorse that could log up to 60-65 games started. And at this point in his career at 32 years old, it’ll be interesting to see how long he can hold up. Afterall, young goaltender Calvin Pickard is breathing down Fleury’s neck.
Pickard struggled mightily in his first preseason action against the Sharks in San Jose. The 25-year-old did make 29 saves, but he also let in five. Even though the Golden Knights blue line was a mess all night, it was simply not good enough for Pickard especially in the second period where he gave up four of his five goals allowed.
Fleury hopes not to duplicate that poor performance when he takes on the Ducks. Here’s the full lineup Vegas took to clash with Anaheim:
Forwards: Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, William Carrier, Erik Haula, Tomas Hyka, William Karlsson, Keegan Kolesar, Stefan Matteau, Tomas Nosek, Paul Thompson, TJ Tynan, Teemu Pulkkinen and Tyler Wong.
Defensemen: Jake Bischoff, Jason Garrison, Brad Hunt, Brayden McNabb, Colin Miller and Griffin Reinhart.
Goaltenders: Marc-Andre Fleury and Oscar Dansk
Next: The Vegas Golden Knights Twitter account roasts the Montreal Canadiens.
Key Notes: In Fleury’s career against Anaheim, he is a combined 9-3-0 with a GAA of 2.33, and a .916 save percentage. Camp invite Tyler Wong will get another look in the lineup tonight as he’s still not under contract with the Vegas Golden Knights.
TV/Radio Information: While the Golden Knights won’t be on TV, you’ll be able to listen to all the action on the radio on as FOX 98.9 FM/1340 AM has you covered.