a stop-over in Toronto, it took him 8 hours to fly from Chicago to Winnipeg, where he would join the Predators. And that was after

PITTSBURGH (AP) It was an emotional night for the Pittsburgh Penguins and their beloved former goaltender http://www.officialavalanche.com/authentic-adidas-sven-andrighetto-jersey , Marc-Andre Fleury.Fleury was back in the city where he started his NHL career and spent more than a decade, helping to backstop the Penguins to multiple championships. The Penguins wanted to honor their old friend – and they did – but they also wanted to win.Third-period goals by Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel ruined Fleury’s homecoming as the Penguins defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 5-4 on Tuesday.”I think it was an important game, and obviously with (Fleury) coming in it added a lot of emotion,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said. ”Once you get out there, you’re trying to win a game and he’s trying to do the same thing.”Fleury, who won three Stanley Cups with the Penguins – including the last two seasons – returned to Pittsburgh for the first time since Vegas selected him in the expansion draft last summer. Fleury, who stopped 33 shots, beat his former teammates in December in Las Vegas.”The game was (in Pittsburgh), so it was different,” Fleury said. ”It was very weird, but it was a game I’ll remember forever.”In the first meeting between the teams in Pittsburgh, Malkin gave the Penguins a 4-2 lead with his 30th of the season at 3:09 of the third period. Malkin, who scored in his fifth straight game, became the fifth player in team history to score 30 goals six times.Kessel extended the lead to 5-2 a little more than three minutes later on a one-touch, backdoor feed from Malkin.Jake Guentzel, Ryan Reaves and Ian Cole also scored for Pittsburgh, which won for the fifth time in six games.Matt Murray, Fleury’s former understudy in Pittsburgh, made 21 saves to top his mentor.William Karlsson scored his 28th of the season on a power play for the Golden Knights. James Neal, who spent four seasons in Pittsburgh, got his 23rd.Ryan Carpenter and Jonathan Marchessault scored in the third period for Vegas, which nearly rallied from a three-goal deficit. The Western Conference leaders have 20 wins in their last 28 games.Fleury, the No. 1 pick in the 2003 NHL draft, spent 13 seasons in Pittsburgh and set team records for games and minutes played http://www.officialcanadiensprostore.com/authentic-adidas-phillip-danault-jersey , wins and shutouts.Murray stepped in when Fleury went down on the eve of the 2016 playoffs. He helped the Penguins to the franchise’s fourth Stanley Cup and eventually grabbed the No. 1 job. Fleury waived his no-movement clause before the trade deadline last spring so the Penguins could protect Murray in the expansion draft.Fleury briefly regained the starting job before leaving Pittsburgh when Murray aggravated an injury during warmups prior to the first game of the playoffs. He won nine games and helped eliminate Columbus and Washington before Murray returned in the third round of the playoffs against Ottawa.The organization put together a tribute video for Fleury that was shown during a first-period stoppage in play. Fleury stood stoically behind his net and rested his glove on his stick as he took in the highlights. The crowd roared in appreciation and gave a long standing ovation to Fleury, who raised his stick in the air and waved to the fans.Murray took it all in from the other end.”Those are always fun to watch and they bring back good memories of the last two years, especially a guy like (Fleury), who was a big part of my development,” Murray said. ”He was a really good friend and mentor.”The crowd gave Fleury his first standing ovation of the night as soon as he hit the ice for pregame warmups. A larger-than-normal crowd of supporters gathered behind the visitors’ goal, many holding handmade signs and cheering each time he took the net.”We knew it was going to happen,” Murray said. ”He’s well-liked and everybody loves (Fleury) for good reason. He deserves every bit of appreciation he gets.”Fleury tapped Murray on the pads during warmups and the two had a short chat while stretching. At the end of warmups, Fleury skated to the red line and took a shot off the pads from Penguins defenseman Kris Letang to the delight of the crowd.”I didn’t know what to expect,” Fleury said. ”In the warmup, I had goosebumps. It’s a night I won’t forget.”NOTES: Pittsburgh won its season-high eighth straight home game. … Penguins forward Patric Hornqvist is week to week with a lower-body injury. Pittsburgh also scratched defensemen Matt Hunwick and Chad Ruhwedel. … Golden Knights forward Williams Carrier returned to Las Vegas to be evaluated by team doctors. The team also scratched defenseman Jason Garrison.UP NEXTGolden Knights: Complete a three-game road trip Thursday at San Jose.Penguins: At the Dallas Stars on Friday.— Thomas Vanek remembers waking up in Edmonton, Alberta, and turning on the TV in his hotel room to find out where he was heading.It was March 5, 2014, the NHL’s trade deadline day, and Vanek’s bags were packed. He knew he had played his final game a few days earlier for the New York Islanders after rejecting the team’s bid to sign the pending free agent to a contract extension.It wasn’t until the deadline passed when Vanek’s phone started ringing. It wasn’t his agent, the Islanders or some other team’s general manager.“I got a message from a reporter saying, ‘The Montreal media wants to talk to you,” said Vanek, recalling how he found out he’d been traded to the Canadiens. “That was probably the hardest one because it was my first trade deadline deal.”It wouldn’t be his last.The 35-year-old Vanek, now in his second stint with Detroit, has been dealt twice more at the deadline. Red Wings GM Ken Holland informed Vanek he was being traded to Florida on March 1, 2017. And he learned through a friend’s text message that Vancouver had sent him to Columbus last Feb. 26.Though the one-year contract he signed with Detroit last summer includes a no-trade clause, there remains a chance he’ll move once again before this season’s deadline on Monday.“There’s a reason I came back to Detroit because I like it here,” he said. “But at the same time Womens Craig Smith Jersey , who knows what’s going to happen? Kenny’s always talking. So if something comes up that makes complete sense, then we’ll take a look at it.”The trading has already begun, with the most notable featuring Toronto’s acquisition of defenseman Jake Muzzin in a deal with Los Angeles on Jan. 28.Otherwise, the trade market remains bottled up with more prospective buyers than sellers. Of the 31 teams, 25 are either in contention or within six points of their conference’s eighth and final playoff spot entering play Wednesday.Among the more notable players considered on the market are forwards Artemi Panarin (Columbus), Derick Brassard (Florida), Gustav Nyquist (Detroit), New York Rangers Kevin Hayes and Mats Zuccarello, and Columbus goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. And then there’s the Ottawa Senators, who are attempting to determine the trade status of forwards Matt Duchene, Mark Stone and Ryan Dzingel, all of whom are eligible to become free agents this summer.Last year’s deadline featured 18 trades involving 37 players, including the Sabres dealing Evander Kane to San Jose, St. Louis sending Paul Stastny to Winnipeg and the Rangers moving Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller to Tampa Bay.Few of the deals made an impact in their team’s’ respective playoff runs. The Lightning reached the Eastern Conference finals, but they were defeated by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals, whose most notable late-season addition was defenseman Michal Kempny (acquired in a trade with Chicago a week before the deadline).The expansion Vegas Golden Knights reached the Stanley Cup Final despite getting limited production from trade-deadline addition Tomas Tatar. San Jose made it to the second round before being eliminated, butre-signed Kane.None of the deals came close to matching what’s considered the NHL’s gold standard on March 10, 1980. That’s when the Islanders acquired Butch Goring from Los Angeles to spark what became New York’s run of winning four consecutive championships. Goring wasn’t happy about the deal that also sent forward Billy Harris and defenseman Dave Lewis to the Kings.“It was very upsetting because I was on the second year of a six-year contract and had made a commitment to basically spend my entire career in L.A.,” Goring recalled.It didn’t take long to get over the shock for the then-30-year-old, who had scored 20 or more goals nine times during his 10-plus seasons with the Kings.With Goring, the Islanders closed the season 8-0-4 and lost just six times in the playoffs in winning the Final in six games over Philadelphia. The following year, Goring was named the playoff MVP.He called the adjustment joining a star-packed Islanders team as less intimidating than it might have been as a younger player.“I came into that dressing room and I didn’t have anything to prove. I had a pretty strong reputation about who I was and what I couldn’t do,” Goring said. “I wasn’t taking Bryan Trottier’s job. I was there to be who I was.”Now an Islanders broadcaster, Goring refers to the trade as the “icing on the cake” of his career.“Nobody knew much about Butch Goring Filip Forsberg Jersey , as I played all those years in L.A. There was no exposure,” he said. “And now everyone remembers who you are. The great thing about the trade deadline is everybody talks about Butch Goring.”DEADLINE DAYVanek wondered if the deadline falls too late in the season for players to become comfortable with their new surroundings.“The only thing you can control is being a good person, being a good teammate,” he said. “But at the same time, the team that gets you, they want you to be productive. And that’s the hard part.”Goring doesn’t think so, noting the trade deadline used to be 26 days before the end of the season and now is 40.“If you’re going to acquire a player that’s going to be a difference maker, he’s going to adapt in a hurry,” Goring said.Red Wings GM Holland backs the current deadline.“For those teams that are buyers, you still have 20 games to get that player acclimated to your system. For the teams that aren’t sure if they’re buyers or sellers, it gives them more time,” Holland said.PLANES, UBERS AND FLAT TIRESRyan Hartman won’t soon forget what happened when traded by Chicago to Nashville at last year’s deadline.With a stop-over in Toronto, it took him 8 hours to fly from Chicago to Winnipeg, where he would join the Predators. And that was after beginning the day contending with a flat tire.He used Uber to get to the Blackhawks practice and then had to use it again — this time with all his equipment — to return home and pack before heading to the airport.“I had an issue with it all year and someone told me at the beginning of the year, ‘You’re going to end up getting a flat tire at the worst time possible,'” Hartman said. “Sure enough.”LEADERS (through Tuesday)Points: Nikita Kucherov (Tampa Bay), 99; Goals: Alexander Ovechkin (Washington), 42; Longest point streak: Patrick Kane (Chicago) 18 games (Jan. 3 to present); Rookie points: Elias Petterson (Vancouver), 54; Wins: Marc-Andre Fleury (Vegas) 29.GAME OF THE WEEKThe Colorado Avalanche visit the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday in a game between two Western Conference wild-card contenders.