Marc-Andre Fleury on Best Pace Since 2007-08 Season

Monday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Marc-Andre Fleury dazzled. With a depleted Penguins roster including names like Bryan Rust and Bobby Farnham, the Penguins scored 4 goals against the Lightning, despite a dreadful opening 20 minutes. The only reason the Penguins were still in the game was Fleury.

With that said, Fleury is having a remarkable season through 23 games.

**whispers** Fleury is one of them. RT @ngreenberg: Who are your top three Vezina Trophy finalists right now?

— Sean Gentille (@seangentille) December 15, 2014

We all know about Fleury's postseason failures and how he seemingly finds himself in position where he needs to redeem himself. He was great in the playoffs for the Penguins last season, and as I've pointed out here before, Mike Bales seems to have done wonders for Marc-Andre Fleury.

Has Mike Johnston and his system taking away the wide-open aspect of the Penguins game and turning into a more controlled possession type game helped even more?

Have a look here at Fleury's 5v5 save percentage for each regular season of his career.

He was remarkable in the 2007-08 season. And at this point, he's on pace to come close to his best season, and should he fall short of that, he is still looking at his best performance of the past seven seasons.

We've got at least another 40 or so games to go this season, so it's way too early to call the race, but all signs point to this year being a very good one for Fleury. Should he end up having a career-type year and also manage to put together a very successful playoffs, the contract given by Rutherford could come off looking very good in the long run. Time will tell.