Cheevers had a chance to get even easier votes (which I used) and that's AS votes. In a time of very weak goaltending league wide (plus a smaller league) and he still was never top-5. Double-dipping on save pct. (already a tough stat) and GSAA is a tough look.
And you're using top-5 finishes for a goalie who had his prime in a 12-team league or whatever versus Fleury who literally played for the 32nd team. And still Cheevers isn't better. What a black eye that is for this argument.
Fleury was only remarked as a bigger choker because of recency bias with a little influence from your general Penguins thoughts...
I can't speak to Cheevers's alleged Smythe runs in '69 and '70...was he actually considered for the Smythe, did we see this? They may well be Smythe runs, I don't know. I've seen every single second of Marc-Andre Fleury's playoff career, every second, so I know the ins and outs. The idea that Fleury cost us more than he won us is preposterous, it's just something people say to gloss over a career that they don't care to remember or because he ended proving that person wrong because they made a claim about a 21 year old goalie with no goalie coach and felt like they had to stick with it or something...
Fleury was or was just about our best player in '07 and '08 (game 5 of the SCF was the best goalie performance I've ever seen). He was very strong in 3 of 4 series in '09, but the shootout against Washington damaged his averaging stats. He shutdown Detroit late in that series in a huge way.
'10 wasn't anything noteworthy one way or the other. Team seemed to run out of steam, like most teams that go to back to back Finals in this era. '11 was without Crosby and Malkin...it didn't matter what Fleury did.
'12 was the all-time **** show series. He didn't stop us - as that was a deeply flawed team. He didn't help us by providing any rock-solidness either. This was a poor one, but that's one of the strangest series in history.
'13 was a big failure by him. His biggest fold. Got replaced by Vokoun in the Isles series.
'14, '15, '16 don't move the needle one way or the other. He was really good in the series against New York in '14 as I recall. That's about all that's worth mentioning...
'17 he was the Smythe favorite early in the Conference Final round. Had a tough game and then Sully went back to Murray.
'18 I had him as the Smythe winner all the way to the Final. I kept a log, the last time Fleury was in 1st for the Smythe was May 31. Then by my next update, he had fallen. He ended in the 3/4 hole with Ovechkin.
'19 is the Ear of God miscarriage of justice. Would have been nice to get a save, but hanging a major power play on a goalie would be a lot.
'21 was really good in the first two series and then the whole team quit somehow against a Montreal team...regardless, he didn't cost them personally. Just some odd coaching choices...
So, '13 was his bottoming out, but to say that he cost us Cup when he didn't finish a series...Vokoun came in and won the first two and then we didn't score any goals in the ECF. So, fine, that's one. And then if you really want to make a point, you can hang that wacky '12 series on him...sure, whatever. But the charge that's made here is fraudulent.
