Marc-Andre Fleury appreciates interest, but he's staying retired

The goalie trade market is pretty scarce, so some NHL teams have reached into the recent past.

And while retired Marc-Andre Fleury is flattered by the attention, he says he plans to stay retired.

“I had some calls and I took the time to think about it,” he recently told USA TODAY’s Sports Seriously. “It’s very nice of them to think of me in that way, very flattering, but then at the end of the day, I stopped playing for some reasons. I thought it was better to just stay on the sidelines.”

Fleury hung up his skates after 21 seasons in 2025, finishing with three Stanley Cup titles, a Vezina Trophy and the second most regular-season wins in NHL history (575). Since the playoffs ended for the Minnesota Wild, he played for Canada in the world championships and for one period and a shootout of a preseason game with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but now his focus is on a post-playing life.

He’s enjoying the freedom of having more time but says there are other times when he misses playing.

“I miss the guys, I miss the competition, I miss battling as a team trying to win a game and the feeling that you get when you win a game,” he said.

But he’s finding plenty to do. He’s coaching his 6-year-old, he’s playing tennis, has driven a race car, tried some boxing and he went skiing, which he wouldn’t be able to do under an NHL contract. He has a partnership with Kraft Hockeyville, which brings a preseason NHL game to a small community and helps refurbish rinks. He occasionally puts on the goalie pads, as his agent, Allan Walsh, posted on Thursday.