Marc-Andre Fleury and the dangers of raw save percentage

Compared to his stout first three rounds of the playoffs, Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury’s raw save percentage has dropped significantly in the Final versus the Washington Capitals. But he’s not Vegas’ problem.

Far and away, the Vegas Golden Knights were able to dismantle the Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks and Winnipeg Jets in four, six and five games, respectively because of Marc-Andre Fleury’s prowess in the crease.

Through the first three rounds of the playoffs, Fleury posted a .947 save percentage.

So far through the Final, he’s sporting a percentage of .845.

If an alien landed on Earth today, the first thing it would say is, “A first-year NHL expansion team is in the Stanley Cup Final?!” And immediately after, when it learned that the Golden Knights had dropped three games in a row to the Capitals and compared those two raw save percentages above, that alien, without any other context, would likely conclude that Fleury is the problem.

Hence the dangers of relying on raw save percentage in goalie evaluation.

So if Fleury isn’t the problem, what is? Not to be flippant, but have you seen this Capitals offense these last three games?

Vegas coach Gerard Gallant hit the nail on the head when he spoke to gathered media about Fleury’s performance so far in the Golden Knights’ three losses.

“A lot of those goals were east-west passes,” Gallant said.

“They made some real good passes. A couple on the power play were back door plays. We’ve got to cover the guy without the puck. They basically had passes — like I said, there was a couple of passes by Backstrom that were unbelievable passes. You’ve got to give your goalie a chance to make those saves. On those plays, there was no chance for him to make those saves.”

Backstrom tallied three assists in Game 4. Here’s one of the passes in question, leading to a Michal Kempny one-timer to give the Caps a 5-2 lead.

The Capitals’ Twitter account hilariously calls it “saucy” — and it is pretty damn saucy:

As you can see, the Golden Knights defense puts Fleury in a real hard spot here. Colin Miller (No. 6) gets blown up by T.J. Oshie, who then goes right over and covers Shea Theodore, allowing Backstrom to sneak that beauty of a pass over to Kempny for the goal.

Unless he has X-ray vision, there’s almost no way Fleury can stop that one.

“There’s too many guys staring at the puck carrier, and we’re leaving the back side open too much,” Gallant said.

“[We need to] make sure we’re paying attention to the guys behind the puck and away from the puck. Marc will make the save on the guy shooting the puck. We’ve just got to make sure we’re taking away the passes.”

Of course, not everything is about defense for the Golden Knights.

The Capitals have been able to effectively take away Vegas’ top line, holding Jonathan Marchessault, William Karlsson and Reilly Smith to three goals and five assists combined in the first four games.

Sure, there have been flukes. “A couple of unfortunate bounces, and we’re down 3-0,” Coach Gallant said about Game 4, in which the Golden Knights rang a comical number of shots off the posts and James Neal inexplicably missed this shot:

Though hockey is a fickle friend and the Stanley Cup Playoffs perhaps the flukiest of the four major sports championships, ultimately luck can only help or hinder so much.

Ultimately, as Nate Schmidt told NHL Network’s Jamie Hersch, “I don’t really believe in luck. I believe in making your own luck by creating good opportunities.”

Down three games to one, the Golden Knights host the Capitals in Game 5 on Thursday in an elimination game. Only one team has overcome a 3-1 deficit in the Cup Final.

If they want to keep their fairytale season alive and hoist the Stanley Cup, the Golden Knights need to help Fleury help himself and get back to playing the suffocating hockey that carried them through three rounds.

After all, the night is darkest before the dawn.

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