Wild beat Penguins, 5-3, as Marc-Andre Fleury gets sendoff from Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH — In a different rink with another team, the sights and sounds would have been peculiar.

Home fans lined the away side of the ice for warmups, the boards plastered with homemade signs for a visiting player who was cheered enthusiastically when he was shown on the video board.

But in Pittsburgh where Marc-Andre Fleury is still beloved by the fan base, the reception for the Wild goaltender wasn’t surprising at all.

“It’s just normal for us,” Penguins alternate captain Kris Letang said. “He made a big difference in this organization. People appreciate that, and they’ll remember that forever.”

Fleury’s return to Pittsburgh was the first farewell of his last season before retirement, a thoughtful ode by the Penguins to their one-time franchise goalie that the Wild commemorated for Fleury with a 5-3 rally on Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena to improve to 6-1-2.

Fleury picked up his second win of the season, making 26 saves in his 100th game with the Wild and 1,028th in the NHL; he’s one behind Patrick Roy for third all time.

Frederick Gaudreau scored twice, including on a breakaway, and Kirill Kaprizov tallied three points to put the finishing touches on the Wild’s comeback after they sunk into a two-goal hole for a second straight game.

Pittsburgh’s Valtteri Pusstinen capitalized on the second of two straight power plays, scoring from the right circle 11 minutes, 36 seconds into the first period before Rickard Rakell turned into a shot in the slot at 15:31.

But the Wild climbed back to equilibrium before the period ended.

Jakub Lauko snuck the puck between the post and Penguins goalie Joel Blomqvist (35 saves) with 2:57 left in the first and then 55 seconds later, Gaudreau flipped a Pittsburgh turnover over Blomqvist for his first goal of the season.

Only 1:38 into the second period and on his very next shift after his goal, Gaudreau polished off a breakaway set up by Kaprizov for his fourth career two-goal game.

Kaprizov was also the architect of the Wild’s next goal with 37 seconds to go in the second, the Wild’s leading scorer finding Mats Zuccarello for a redirect as Zuccarello crashed the net for a much-needed reset for the Wild.

Minutes earlier, the Penguins upped the pressure after denying the second of five Wild power plays that came after Brock Faber’s first NHL fight.

Faber got tied up along the boards with Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby, who assisted on every Penguins goal, and after the two’s shoving match ended with Crosby peeling away, Crosby’s teammate Jack St. Ivany came off the bench and fought Faber. St. Ivany received an extra roughing penalty on the play.

Zuccarello’s goal turned into the game-winner after a Rakell deflection 3:34 into the third period.

But the Wild were steady the rest of the way to finish their season-long stretch of seven road games in a row with 11 out of a possible 14 points.

This was Kaprizov’s sixth consecutive game with multiple points, a career high that also tied Zuccarello for the franchise record, and he has a league-leading seven multi-point performances overall to go along with 18 points in nine games.

The Wild also concluded their trip with captain Jared Spurgeon back in action.

The defenseman had been out since the second game of the season with a lower-body injury related to the hip and back surgeries he had earlier this year.

“Hopefully this is the last of it but never really know,” said Spurgeon, who traced the issue back to the last preseason game. “So, we’re doing a good job of keeping the treatment going.”

But the whole day was a tribute to Fleury.

From the pregame prank by Fleury’s former teammate Max Talbot, who took a page out of Fleury’s playbook by taping Fleury’s gear together, to the in-game standing ovation and the Fleury-themed warmup pucks in between, the three-time Stanley Cup champion with the Penguins and second-winningest goalie in NHL history was celebrated as such.

While he’d rather avoid the hoopla, Fleury thought he might soak up the uniqueness of the game, and he appeared to be doing just that when the crowd applauded him after a video tribute during a timeout in the first period.

The future Hall of Famer rewarded them with a throwback effort late in the second period, Fleury weathering a push from the Penguins by sprawling on his back sans stick to cover up a puck that bounced off the post.

In typical Fleury fashion, he thanked his net afterward while a “Fleury” chant broke out during one of the loudest cheers of the night.