“He just has a presence.”

Former Pittsburgh Penguins coach Eddie Olczyk made the prescient remark about the team’s first-round pick and first-overall pick, Marc-Andre Fleury, when recounting Fleury’s first professional game.

The moment occurred on Oct. 10, 2003, when a Pittsburgh Penguins crowd starving for good news got their first glimpse of what was to come. Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury made his NHL debut as a remarkably athletic, bright-yellow-pad-wearing, big, toothy, grinning goalie. He made 46 of 48 saves and kept the downtrodden Penguins in the game against the LA Kings in a 3-0 loss.

To finish a two-on-one, LA star Ziggy Palffy had a yawning cage and snapped it toward the net from the left wing … and then there was a leg pad to steal the goal.

The Civic Arena crowd erupted. Fleury was the first brick in the championship core, and that hope sprang eternal. It took six more years, a couple of coaches, and a new general manager before those Stanley Cup dreams came to fruition, and it took another impressive Fleury save to secure what became a dynasty.

Saturday, the Penguins inducted Fleury into the team’s Hall of Fame.

“It’s always fun coming back for any reason. I feel like I’ve been back many, many times, but I love this team. It still feels like my team,” said Fleury Saturday. “You know, the organization gave me a chance to live my dream, right, and play here for so long. So to me, it means a lot that they were taking the time to recognize me and bring me back for today.”

The Penguins also inducted the general manager who built the second championship chapter of the Penguins dynasty, Jim Rutherford.

Rutherford assumed the duties of a flailing organization that had careened into chaos after firing GM Ray Shero, and a shady delay in firing coach Dan Bylsma tarnished their reputation in 2014.

Potential GM candidates balked at the organization’s offers. And even after Rutherford was hired, potential coaches weren’t interested in joining the mess. Of course, the team still had Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Fleury, but a string of disastrous playoff losses and internal tensions created an undesirable situation.

With a few bold strokes, Rutherford not only fixed the situation, but a string of rapid-fire changes, including acquiring players including Patric Hornqvist, Trevor Daley, Carl Hagelin, and most famously Phil Kessel, earned a couple more Cups and cemented the star players’ legacies.

“Well, I just played the role that I had. I was the general manager. At the end of the day, the players do it, and when new players came in, it just seemed to be a special chemistry, and you know that obviously starts with (Sidney Crosby) and the guys that were here,” Rutherford said. “And then the guys that we added were important guys. Some of those guys like Hornqvist and (Matt) Cullen, and guys like that, all real character guys. So, I would say I played a small role in it. I was just happy to have the opportunity.”

In addition to Fleury and Rutherford, the Penguins are inducting Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman Larry Murphy.

Murphy, 65, was a stealth member of the dominant Penguins Stanley Cup winners in 1991 and 1992. He was a legit top-pairing defenseman who played in 410 out of 421 games as a Penguin (97%), and his plus-102 leads all defensemen in franchise history. The team acquired him in a deadline deal in 1991 along with Peter Taglienetti.

In 336 games with the Penguins, Murphy posted 301 points. He was also a member of the famed 1987 Canada Cup.

And the team’s first president, Jack McGregor, was inducted posthumously in the Contributor category. He organized the effort that brought an NHL team to Pittsburgh and was the President of the franchise from 1967 to 1970. McGregor passed away on January 6, 2026.