At the exact moment that you are reading these words, it’s a good bet that Marc-Andre Fleury, wherever he is, will have a huge grin on his face.

Then again, when doesn’t he?

In the heat of battle on Wednesday night, in Game 7 against the Washington Capitals, with the entire season of his Pittsburgh Penguins on the line, you could see the ear-to-ear smile he was wearing behind the bars of his mask. And it got even wider when the final horn sounded and he’d shut out Alex Ovehckin and Co., 2-0, allowing the defending Stanley Cup champions to advance to the Eastern Conference final against the Ottawa Senators.

He’s happy. His team won. Who wouldn’t be happy, right?

Where Fleury is different from the rest of us is he looks at the world in a glass-half-full way, even when there might be only a drop or two in the bottom of it.

Even in times of adversity, he tries to see the positive. Such was the case a year ago when a concussion he suffered late in the season allowed rookie Matt Murray to take over his starter’s job and run with it all the way to the title.

At no point during that run did Fleury sulk or bitch. Sure, behind that upbeat life-is-good look on his face, he wanted to play. Badly. But this was, first and foremost, what was best for the Penguins. It’s a philosophy that was proven to be the right one, a lesson that was solidified when he had the opportunity to sip from the Stanley Cup last June at the SAP Arena in San Jose.

It’s that unselfish attitude that makes Marc-Andre Fleury a rare specimen in a world of often spoiled and pampered athletes. And it’s one that prompted Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford to give him perhaps the highest praise any player can possibly receive.

“He’s the best team player in sports,” Rutherford told Postmedia in a phone interview on Thursday.

“We know the history here of what he’s done. And then we get to last year when he got hurt and didn’t get back in. Then he got hurt again this year. And then Murray was hurt and Marc took the net and he ran with it. At the most critical time of the season when we needed him, he was at his best.

“Just a special guy and a special player.”

Murray was going to be The Guy the Penguins leaned on this season as they attempted to become the first team to repeat as champs since the 1997-98 Detroit Red Wings. That was the plan anyway. But when Murray suffered a lower-body injury during warmup prior to Game 1 of Pittsburgh’s first-round series against the Columbus Blue Jackets, Fleury has stepped in and gone 8-4.

In the cramped visitors dressing room at the Verizon Center on Wednesday, when the Penguins were celebrating their series win, Rutherford greeted his goalie who, of course, was smiling. You expected something different?

“ I obviously congratulated him as everybody was doing,” Rutherford said with a chuckle. “But I mean, his actions spoke for themselves.

“Hey, he’s always smiling. He’s smiling even when things aren’t at their best. This is a guy with just a very positive attitude towards his game and towards life. He’s just a guy everybody likes to be around.”

With Murray having just backstopped an outstanding Stanley Cup run last spring, there was no shortage of speculation that Rutherford would deal Fleury at some point during the 2016-17 season. Looking back, the Penguins GM certainly is glad he didn’t.

Said Rutherford: “You go back to the start of training camp when people were asking all the questions about our goaltending with Matt Murray coming off the year he had — 'where’s (Fleury) going?' and all that. I said at the time my preference was to keep both goalies and to have both goalies going into the playoffs.

“There were some calls inquiring about him but those conversations didn’t go very far.”

Instead, the Penguins have already advanced relatively far in their quest to defend their title. And you can thank a smiling Marc-Andre Fleury for helping to make that happen.

RUTHERFORD AT ODDS WITH THE ODDS

According to the oddsmakers at Bodog, the Pittsburgh Penguins are the 8-5 favourites of the four remaining teams in the playoffs to win the Stanley Cup.

The Ottawa Senators? They’re considered the longshots at 11-2.

Penguins GM Jim Rutherford isn’t buying it, however. In his mind, the Sens pose as many headaches as the Washington Capitals, the team his Penguins just eliminated in seven games.

“This series will be every bit as tough as the series we just came out of,” Rutherford told Postmedia in a phone interview Thursday. “It’ll be a little bit different in terms of style of play but they’re a good team.

“I’ve followed them all year like I do all teams. They’re to be commended for being where they are today. And they deserve it.”

mzeisberger@postmedia.com

OFF THE POST PODCAST

HostJohn Matisz is joined byAdam Gretz, hockey writer for NBC Sports and FanRag Sports, to handicap the conference finals, rant about Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals, and drool over Erik Karlsson.

Listen here: