Marc-Andre Fleury might not be comfortable coming to Washington in a trade, ‘He’s still very much a Penguin’

The Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins have one of the biggest rivalries in hockey, but over the years it has cooled. The two teams have not met in the playoffs since 2018 and multiple Penguins players have signed with the Capitals (Orpik, Niskanen, Schultz). Both teams have won Stanley Cups and Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby’s legendary statuses in the NHL are cemented.

But the rivalry still apparently lives on for goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, who has become the subject of trade rumors approaching the NHL’s March 21 deadline.

Tuesday, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that the Capitals were looking into acquiring the veteran goaltender from the Chicago Blackhawks as its young goaltending duo of Vitek Vanecek and Ilya Samsonov has struggled to provide league-average goaltending.

Wednesday, Friedman spoke more on the topic during Sportnet’s The Jeff Marek Show and revealed a potential MAF-to-DC trade would take a lot of convincing on the Capitals’ end.

“I think the Capitals are interested,” Friedman said. “Do you remember when Josh Gorges was going to be traded from Montreal to Toronto and he refused to go? Yeah, he said I can’t do that. I think that’s a very big thing here.

“I am not convinced that Fleury would be comfortable doing it,” Friedman added. “He’s still very much a Penguin and I think sometimes we underestimate how much passion there is in these rivalries. I do think the Capitals are very interested. I do think they’d love to do it. We have two months here, but I’m not convinced that Fleury would feel comfortable doing that at all.”

MAF will likely have a lot of pull on wherever he ends up landing if the Blackhawks do indeed trade him as a rental at the trade deadline. Fleury has a 10-team no-trade list and, according to the Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli, Chicago agreed to not move the future Hall of Famer anywhere unless he was comfortable with it.

Fleury was on the Penguins in 2016 and 2017 as they beat the Capitals in the second round en route to consecutive Stanley Cups. In 2018, he was the starter for the Vegas Golden Knights as they fell in five games to Ovechkin and the Caps in the championship series.

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