Marc Andre Fleury benched for the first game of the playoffs.

The Las Vegas Golden Knights will begin the playoffs with a goaltender not named Marc Andre Fleury between the pipes, although this is not the sign of a goaltending controversy just yet. 

On Sunday Las Vegas Golden Knights head coach Peter DeBoer revealed that he would be going with goaltender Robin Lehner for the Golden Knights first game in the Western Conference round robin, that game will be Monday and the Golden Knights will face the Dallas Stars . DeBoer has made it clear that he intends to use both his goaltenders during the early stages of this tournament and, given that they do not face elimination in the round robin, I think the strategy here from DeBoer does make a great deal of sense. Not only will it provide the Golden Knights with a great opportunity to evaluate both goalies after months of time off, but it may also help ease things over for an eventual transition to Lehner taking on the starting role. 

Although Fleury is presumably still the Golden Knights starter, there's a very good argument to be made that Lehner was the better goaltender over the course of the  2019 - 2020 National Hockey League regular season. Despite playing for the Chicago Blackhawks, who were not a playoff team prior to this 24 team format being introduced, Lehner put up better numbers on the season with a .918 save percentage and a 3.01 goals against average over 33 games with Chicago. By comparison Fleury's numbers were a little weaker with a 2.77 goals against average and a .905 save percentage, and in his defense he posted those whole taking on a bigger workload with 49 appearances for Las Vegas.

Lehner's numbers with the Golden Knights however were even more impressive, although admittedly they came over just a 3 game span. Over those 3 games Lehner was outstanding with a 1.67 goals against average and a .940 save percentage, dominant numbers in the NHL. If Lehner has maintained that level of form throughout training camp I would not be surprised to see DeBoer eventually transition over to him as the full time starter, and this decision to use both goaltenders during the round robin may be a precursor to just that.