Marc-Andre Fleury comments on his abysmal start to the season.

The Minnesota Wild made the decision to move forward with veteran goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury as their starting netminder for the 2022-23 National Hockey League regular season this summer when they signed him to a 2 year contract worth $7 million,  an average annual value and salary cap hit of $3.5 million per season, and traded goaltender Cam Talbot to the Ottawa Senators.

Although it is still far too early to judge whether or not that was the correct decision on the part of Wild general manager Bill Guerin, his former teammate in Fleury certainly hasn't given him many reasons to celebrate to start the season.

Over the course of their first two games of the season the Wild have surrendered a whopping 14 goals and while Fleury wasn't in goal for all of them, his numbers aren't much better. In spite of appearing in just 4 periods of action for the Wild this season, Fleury has surrendered a whopping 11 goals already. This situation forced Wild head coach Dean Evason to pull Fleury out of the net on Saturday night, something that he has now only done twice during his tenure as the head coach of the Minnesota Wild.

Fleury, being the veteran goaltender that he is, is well aware of the fact that he has not lived up to expectations through the first 2 games of the season, and following his ugliest performance of the season thus far on Saturday night he was highlight critical of himself in his post game comments. Fleury was asked about the boos that he had received from the Wild faithful at the Xcel Energy Center and, much to his credit, he didn't place an ounce of blame on the fans.

“I don’t blame them. I’d boo myself,” Fleury said as per Wild insider Mike Russo of The Athletic. “I was not good. I feel bad for the fans. I feel bad for my teammates. I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to step up and give our team a chance to win. There’s some tough goals. A few of them. Still, I’ve got to make some saves. Especially the stupid last one there.”

Through 2 games Fleury boasts a horrific 8.37 goals against average and an equally ugly .776 save percentage, numbers that will have to drastically improve if the Wild are to have any hope of winning games at the NHL level.