When Marc-Andre Fleury allows a goal, he skates to the corner to blow off steam. He scrapes his stick blade across the crease to clear off snow. He watches the replay on the scoreboard screen to see what happened, to see if he could have done something differently, and then he moves on.

“I try,” he said.

He said he has always followed this routine. But there are a couple of key differences now: One, he’s 30. He’s older and wiser. He said he knows how to “relax at the right time.” Two, he’s in his second season working with Pittsburgh Penguins goaltending coach Mike Bales, who has taught him not only about stopping the puck, but about letting it in.

“Goals are going to go in,” Bales said. “It doesn’t matter how good you are. You’re going to let goals in in practice, you’re going to let goals go in in the game, and you need to have a plan how you deal with that. It doesn’t mean you have to be happy that they go in, but you have to have a way to reset. Marc’s worked on that, and he’s very good at that.”

Bales said Fleury was “becoming almost more Zen-like in his approach to how he deals with goals.” He wouldn’t give more detail. Fleury smiled. He wouldn’t give more detail, either.

View photos Fleury's goals-against average and save percentage are on track to be career bests. (USA Today) More

Zen?

“I don’t think I’ve broken any sticks lately,” Fleury said. “So I guess that’s good.”

Fleury has been better than good this season. His 2.16 goals-against average and .926 save percentage rank among the NHL leaders. Both are better than his career bests (2.32, .921) and much better than his career averages (2.59, .911). His six shutouts lead the league and already are a career-high.

Some would say this is just a hot streak and Fleury will regress. Maybe it is, and he will eventually, at least to some extent. No one sustains .926 goaltending over a long enough period.

But the Penguins, who signed him to a four-year contract extension in November, think he’s improving with age, experience and coaching, not to mention a new system in front of him. The word they keep using is “calm” – or “calmer.” He’s calmer in mind and body, and it has had a tangible effect on the ice.

“He’s more composed,” said Penguins defenseman Kris Letang. “Maybe he doesn’t have all the spectacular saves he was doing, but he’s always in position.”

Fleury’s talent, work ethic, durability and attitude have never been in question. He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 NHL draft. He has kept himself in incredible shape. He has rarely been unavailable because of injury. He’s always smiling and remains one of the most popular guys in the dressing room.

The knock on Fleury has been that he has racked up regular-season wins because he has played for a good team – he’s already at 309 and counting – and he has been prone to playoff meltdowns. After winning the Stanley Cup in 2009, he had four straight playoffs with a save percentage under .900. He got pulled. He got benched. He got replaced.

Ray Shero, then the general manager, finally convinced Fleury to see a sports psychologist after the 2012-13 season. He also reassigned goaltending coach Gilles Meloche and promoted Bales before the 2013-14 season.

It wasn’t necessarily easy. Fleury was close to Meloche, and now here came Bales trying to change some things he had done for years. “It was a bit of a process where we had to get to know each other first, learn how to communicate and learn what one person sees and how the other person sees it,” Bales said. “We had to be able to come to common ground on how we’re going to talk about things.”

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