Marc-Andre Fleury on possibly returning as an EBUG next season.

This is certainly an interesting development that no one saw coming, no one except perhaps Marc-Andre Fleury's teammates with the Minnesota Wild.

Some members of the Wild had made jokes about Fleury potentially returning as an emergency backup goaltender for the organization next season during their exit interviews, with Wild veteran Marcus Foligno even going so far as to suggest that he and the other players in the Wild locker room were lobbying for it to genuinely happen.

Naturally when it came time for Fleury to have an exit interview of his own the question came up with Fleury getting a good laugh once he learned that his teammates had been putting the suggestion out in the media, but surprisingly Fleury's answer was about the furthest thing from a "no" that one can get.

"Yeah... why not?" said Fleury smiling from ear to ear. "I don't know, I'll have to talk to Billy and Hynesy about it."

Fleury is of course referring to Wild general manager Bill Guerin and Wild head coach John Hynes who would have to give him the green light to do so. Fleury seemed onboard with the idea however and even went so far as to paint a scenario in which it could actually be a pretty good idea for all parties involved.

"If Gus takes a day off or gets sick or something... then why not?" asked Fleury. "It's a good workout, I get a good sweat and have some fun with the guys."

Fleury stressed that the most important thing for him was the ability to focus more on family after his career in the National Hockey League, something that a role as an EBUG might allow him to do.

"I don't wanna do media or nothing like that," said Fleury with a smile. "My first thing though is I wanna be home more. I wanna be there for my kids birthdays. school plays, go walk Halloween with them and stuff like that. I think that's my main concern."

I believe that both fans and teammates alike would love to keep Fleury around the organization in some capacity, and perhaps this will be the way they manage to do so.