Armchair Hockey Scout

Ask the book

2024-25 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2024-25 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.

29

Marc-Andre Fleury

Minnesota Wild Goaltender

One thousand and twenty-five games, 561 wins, 75 shutouts, three Stanley Cups, and an .8949 at 39.

SeasonTeamGPWLOTLGAGAASOSASV%
2003-04PIT214140703.641675.896
2005-06PIT50132761523.2511485.898
2006-07PIT67401691842.8351954.906
2007-08PIT3519102722.334909.921
2008-09PIT62351871622.6741850.912
2009-10PIT67372161682.6511772.905
2010-11PIT65362051432.3231742.918
2011-12PIT67421741532.3631768.913
2012-13PIT332380742.391881.916
2013-14PIT64391851502.3751774.915
2014-15PIT64342091462.32101831.920
2015-16PIT58351761322.2951665.921
2016-17PIT38181071073.0211181.909
2017-18VGK46291341002.2441376.927
2018-19VGK61352151522.5181745.913
2019-20VGK49271651332.7751399.905
2020-21VGK3626100711.986989.928
2021-22CHI/MIN56282351592.9041732.908
2022-23MIN46241641262.8521367.908
2023-24MIN40171551112.9821056.895
2024-25 so far——————————
Career—10255613309425652.607529151.912

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

40 games, 17-15-5, an .8949 save percentage and a 2.98 goals-against average with 2 shutouts on 1,056 shots faced.

He has now finished below .910 in four of the last five seasons, against a career .9120 across 1,025 games. Forty starts at 39 behind the second-best defence in hockey produced a save percentage below .895.

The Physical Game

He is 6-2 and 185 and has always played an aggressive, athletic game, challenging at the top of the crease and recovering across it on reflex.

Seventy-five career shutouts in 1,025 games. He handles the puck as well as any goaltender of his generation and has always been willing to leave the net to do it. The glove is still the best part of him and the legs are not what they were.

The Mental Game

Rebound control has never been the strength; he stops the first one spectacularly and the second is somebody else’s problem.

Twenty seasons and 1,025 games in a position that eats people. He has been the most popular man in every dressing room he has entered and he has never once looked like he minded any of it.

The Intangibles

First overall in 2003 out of Sorel, twenty seasons across four organisations, 561 wins in 1,025 games, and three Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh.

He is 39 and this is the end of it. Five hundred and sixty-one wins is second in the history of the league, and what is being paid for now is the room rather than the crease.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

  • a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
  • he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

  • plays-aggressivea strength· meets the shooter at the top of the crease

    “He is 6-2 and 185 and has always played an aggressive, athletic game, challenging at the top of the crease and recovering across it on reflex.”

  • plays-deephe lacks it· takes the net away by occupying it

    “He is 6-2 and 185 and has always played an aggressive, athletic game, challenging at the top of the crease and recovering across it on reflex.”

  • puck-handlinga strength· starts the breakout himself

    “He handles the puck as well as any goaltender of his generation and has always been willing to leave the net to do it.”

  • rebound-controlhe lacks it· where the second chance ends up

    “Rebound control has never been the strength; he stops the first one spectacularly and the second is somebody else's problem.”

  • leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it

    “He has been the most popular man in every dressing room he has entered and he has never once looked like he minded any of it.”