For months, the conventional wisdom has held that the Penguins will return rookie goalie Marc-Andre Fleury to his junior team before he qualifies for a $3 million bonus payment.

Such logic is firmly rooted in reality -- the Penguins have limited cash, and Fleury won't make them a playoff contender by spending the entire season here -- but the math behind it has skewed things a bit and sending him back to Cape Breton in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League isn't necessarily the fiscal no-brainer it long appeared to be.

Mostly because the performance levels Fleury is required to meet -- levels routinely described as "easily attainable" since his contract was finalized in early October -- don't look quite so easy to reach anymore.

To qualify for his $3 million bonus, Fleury must make at least 25 appearances of 20 minutes or more and meet two of the following standards: A 3.25 goals against average, .890 save percentage, 20 victories, four shutouts, 1,800 minutes of work and a top-five finish in the Calder Trophy balloting, which determines the league's top rookie.

Going into the Penguins' game against Colorado at 7:38 p.m. today at Mellon Arena, when Fleury will make his third start in the past five games, his numbers are 3.47, .901, four victories, one shutout and 1,037 minutes played. The Calder voting won't be until after the regular season.

He almost certainly won't get 20 victories -- the Penguins are on pace to finish with 18 -- and the four shutouts look out of reach, too. Fleury will have to shave almost a quarter-goal off his goals-against average to get it down to 3.25, and his save percentage has been plummeting.

Fleury will have to appear in almost 13 more complete games to reach 1,800 minutes-played, and rookies such as Michael Ryder, Patrice Bergeron, Andrew Raycroft and Trent Hunter, among others, probably would have nudged past him on a lot of ballots if the Calder voting were conducted now.

The only consolation for Fleury -- or his accountants, anyway -- is that even if he fails to receive his $3 million bonus this season, he can make up for it before his contract expires in 2007.

His bonuses are capped at $8 million over the life of the contract, and he will have a chance to earn that amount the final two seasons of the agreement.

There is an undercurrent of sentiment inside the organization to return Fleury to Cape Breton not only to save money, but also to help restore the confidence he has lost and to limit any psychological distress he'd experience by spending the rest of the winter here. Management's official position is that evaluations of Fleury are ongoing.

The way Fleury's season began, it looked as if he not only would win the Calder, but also might have it renamed in his honor. He was the NHL's rookie of the month for October, in which he recorded a 2-2-2 record, 1.96 goals-against average and .943 save percentage.

His play gradually went downhill, however, and has slipped to a point where, if not for his bright yellow equipment, there'd be no way of knowing he is the same goalie he was last fall.

Exhibit A: Fleury was named the No. 1 or No. 3 star in seven of his first eight NHL appearances; he has been named the No. 3 star once in the 11 appearances that followed.

Not coincidentally, his record in those first eight games was 3-3-2. Since then, he is 1-9, with his most recent victory Dec. 1, before he participated in the world junior championships with Team Canada.

Goaltending coach Gilles Meloche, who doubles as the Penguins' Quebec scout, watched Fleury live for the first time since training camp Thursday, when he allowed six goals on 23 shots before being pulled from a 6-5 loss in Ottawa.

Meloche allowed that it was "tough to judge" Fleury's work, but his real-time assessment was that Fleury has lost confidence and seems to be trying to compensate for the shortcomings of the players in front of him. That's a common problem for goaltenders on struggling teams.

"You don't just play your game," Meloche said. "You try to do too much."

It was clear from Fleury's earliest moments with the Penguins that he is team-oriented, but Meloche believes that mind-set, however admirable, might work against Fleury getting any benefit from whatever time he has left in the NHL this season.

His development might be helped most, Meloche suggested, by focusing solely on his own performance, removing it from the team context as much as possible.

"It's tough," Meloche said. "There's no light at the end of the tunnel. You just have to keep it to the basics, play your own game. You have to play individually. You can't worry about winning, losing or giving up goals."

Fleury is to be forgiven if he focuses on how many goals he gives up tonight, however, because the Avalanche can score them by the half-dozen. Suffice to say, if the Penguins were interested in hand-picking an opponent to help restore Fleury's confidence, he'd spend this evening at the far end of the bench.

Coach Eddie Olczyk, though, pointed out that starting Fleury in the wake of his rough night in Ottawa adheres to a pattern followed throughout the season.

"When goalies have had a tough night ... [they've gotten] another opportunity to work themselves out of it," he said. "And Marc's no different than anybody else. I feel that's the right thing to do, and I've got confidence in him, that he can play a great game."