{"id":174990,"date":"2025-09-28T11:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T11:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/174990\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T11:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T11:06:08","slug":"sept-27-nhl-preseason-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/174990\/","title":{"rendered":"Sept. 27: NHL Preseason Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marc-Andre Fleury<\/a> stopped all eight shots he faced playing the third period of his farewell game for the Pittsburgh Penguins, who defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-1 at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old, who announced in April of 2024 that last season with the Minnesota Wild would be his final one in the NHL, signed a professional tryout contract with Pittsburgh on Sept. 12 to play one more time for the team that selected him No. 1 in the 2003 NHL Draft. Fleury played the first 13 of his 21 NHL seasons for the Penguins, winning the Stanley Cup three times (2009, 2016, 2017).<\/p>\n

With under two minutes remaining, the crowd began chanting, \u201cThank you Fleury.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goalie had last played April 29, when he made six saves on seven shots in relief of Filip Gustavsson in the Wild\u2019s 3-2 overtime loss at the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 5 of the Western Conference First Round.<\/p>\n

Sidney Crosby<\/a> had a goal and two assists in his preseason debut, and Rickard Rakell<\/a> scored twice for the Penguins (2-1-1). Sergei Murashov<\/a> made 12 saves on 13 shots before being replaced by Fleury to start the third.<\/p>\n

Luca Del Bel Belluz<\/a> scored, and Elvis Merzlikins<\/a> made 32 saves for the Blue Jackets (2-3-0).<\/p>\n

Del Bel Belluz put Columbus ahead 1-0 at 16:08 of the first period, scoring from the top of the crease off a pass from Yegor Chinakhov<\/a> on a 2-on-1.<\/p>\n

Crosby tied it 1-1 at 5:20 of the second period. He took a pass from Avery Hayes<\/a> above the blue line, drove to the right circle and lifted a shot inside the left post.<\/p>\n

Murashov stopped Chinakhov on a breakaway at 16:19.<\/p>\n

Rakell then put Pittsburgh ahead 2-1 on the power play with two seconds left in the period, knocking in a loose puck in the crease.<\/p>\n

Ville Koivunen<\/a> extended the lead to 3-1 at 8:56 of the third. He intercepted Merzlikins\u2019 clearing attempt from behind the goal and scored into an open net.<\/p>\n

Rakell scored into an empty net at 17:32 for the 4-1 final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marc-Andre Fleury stopped all eight shots he faced playing the third period of his farewell game for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-174990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}