A fascinating journey for one of the NHL’s most interesting characters will reach a new destination when Robin Lehner skates into the crease as the Vegas Golden Knights’ unquestioned starting goalie on opening night.

Lehner is the man here now, the heir to a net previously owned for four years by Marc-André Fleury, perhaps the most popular athlete in Las Vegas history. The franchise-shifting, and to some, infamous, offseason trade of Fleury to the Chicago Blackhawks paved the way for Lehner, now the 1A goalie without the 1B he’s had attached for so many years.

This season will provide the chance for Golden Knights’ fans to get to know Lehner for more than being the other half of the Fleury goalie duo.

“I think he knows he’s got some big shoes to fill,” Golden Knights coach Pete DeBoer says. “At the same time, you don’t replace Marc-André Fleury, and I don’t think it’s fair to put that expectation on him.

“I have no doubt though,” the coach continues, “this guy is committed to giving us excellent goaltending all year, and hopefully championship goaltending all year.

Lehner has been a good goalie for nearly a decade, and a great one for the past few years. In the last three seasons, no goalies with as many games as Lehner can match his save percentage (.923) or Goals Saved Above Expectation (29.2, according to advanced stats provider Evolving Hockey). He has excelled in all different systems—the Islanders’ tight defensive structure, the Blackhawks’ wide-open style and with the Golden Knights for parts of the past two seasons.

He has been part of a tandem in each of the past three years, splitting the net with Thomas Greiss in New York, Corey Crawford in Chicago and Fleury in Vegas. He hasn’t been a full-time starter since the 2017-2018 season with the Buffalo Sabres.

The Sabres were terrible during Lehner’s three-year tenure with the team, but he still managed a .915 save percentage and 2.83 goals against average—strong numbers for a goalie on a good team and even more impressive for one on a bad club.

Lehner has kept up a similar level of play since arriving in Vegas and playing nearly half of the regular-season games while he was healthy. With Fleury now gone, Vegas signed Laurent Brossoit to complete its goalkeeping unit. But it’s not going to be a timeshare. As long as Lehner’s healthy, he will start a vast majority of the games.

“It’s no different,” Lehner said during training camp. “[Brossoit] is a really good goalie, and I expect nothing different over all the other years. We will battle and compete, and that’s my philosophy: Best goalie plays, doesn’t matter.”

That’s been Lehner’s mantra since coming to Vegas. It can sound like lip service when most players share the “anything for the team” message, but Lehner has demonstrated that he means it.

He played in only one playoff game in the first two rounds last year before coming in to help the Golden Knights secure what would be their final victory of the season—a 2-1 overtime win in Game 4 in Montreal.

“Truly, in my heart, I don’t care if I’m on the bench or in the net,” Lehner said afterwards. “I’ll do my best for the team. I don’t care. [Fleury] has been absolutely outstanding. He’s the reason why we’re here, along with a lot of the other guys. When you get a chance to come in and help, it’s great. You just do what you can for the team, no matter what position you’re in.”

Lehner has never been one to hold back, whether it’s about hockey or anything else. He’s been open in the past about his alcoholism and rehab and emerged as perhaps the NHL’s most vocal advocate on mental health.

He finished a news conference last year with a 10-minute denunciation of the NHL’s vaccination policy, stating that the league didn’t live up to promises of reduced restrictions and that it told players “a blatant lie.” He also recently called out NHL team doctors—though, not the Golden Knights’—on Twitter, alleging medical malpractice; at press time, NHL officials were planning to speak with him about the charges directly.

In his season-opening news conference, Golden Knights captain Mark Stone told a wild story about Lehner’s off-ice personality.

“The argument today was how big a snake was in a picture, he knows all that stuff,” Stone said. “He stirred up my backyard and I had five snakes in my pool because of him.”

Wait, snakes?

“Yeah, he was digging them up in my backyard, digging the snake holes. And then a week later I had five snakes in my pool.”

It happened during a goodbye party at the end of last season. Lehner said he was trying to find snakes to mess with former teammate Ryan Reaves. Strange as those details were, they spoke of the rapport Lehner has developed with his teammates.

Stone and other teammates speak highly of Lehner, explaining that they see him as more than Fleury’s replacement. “Obviously we all love Fleury,” defenseman Alec Martinez says, “but we all love Lehner.”

And Lehner has already proven his ability with the Golden Knights, helping the team reach the league semifinals in each of the last two seasons. He has four years left on a contract that, if played to completion, will make him the longest-tenured goalie in franchise history. Yes, longer than you-know-who.

Lehner has helped his teams win the Jennings Trophy—given to the goalie or goalies who give up the fewest goals in a season—twice in the last three years, in 2021 with the Golden Knights and in 2018-2019 with the Islanders.

This season, he could challenge for it on his own. Based on his recent stats and an expected workload bump this year, he should also enter the season as a contender for the Vezina Trophy that Fleury won last season.

Lehner dedicated his offseason to losing weight and getting faster, diving back into mixed martial arts training. He worked with perhaps Las Vegas’ top current MMA coach in Syndicate MMA’s John Wood.

Add it to the list of Lehner’s many diverse passions. The Swedish native, NHL nomad is many things—UFC fan, mental-health advocate and part-time snake charmer.

Most importantly, he’s the Golden Knights’ starting goaltender.

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