The Blackhawks have acquired Marc-Andre Fleury for free

The Vegas Golden Knights have just dumped Marc-Andre Fleury and his $7,000,000 cap hit.

According to Darren Dreger, Fleury is being dealt from the Golden Knights to the Blackhawks with nothing going from Chicago to Vegas in return. Vegas also won’t be retaining any of his salary.

Fleury has been the face of Vegas’ franchise since the team entered the league back in 2017. He was acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins for a second-round pick ahead of the Expansion Draft and immediately played a key role in helping the Golden Knights reach the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season.

In 2019-20, Fleury was having a mediocre season, so the Golden Knights went ahead and acquired Robin Lehner from the Blackhawks. Lehner then inked a long-term deal with the team the following off-season, signalling that Fleury’s deals in Vegas were likely over.

Despite that, the Golden Knights didn’t move Fleury and he went ahead and put together arguably the best season of his career in 2021. Fleury posted a .928 save percentage over the course of 36 games and won the first Vezina Trophy of his career.

This could be a huge addition for the Blackhawks. While Chicago had a middling offence in 2021, they were among the league’s worst in terms of goals against thanks largely to poor goaltending. @Kevin Lankinen, @Malcolm Subban, and @Collin Delia combined to post a .906 save percentage.

That said, there’s no guarantee Fleury will continue playing. While Fleury didn’t have Chicago on his 10-team no-trade list, he’s stated that he doesn’t want to play anywhere other than Vegas. There’s a chance he could opt to not report and instead retire.

Also, from a Vegas perspective, this opens up $7,000,000 of cap room with nothing coming back in return. The Golden Knights now have the room to potentially make a huge splash, such as trading for @Jack Eichel.