Every win from now until he retires will add another notch in the record books and another line in Martin Brodeur’s saga of personal and team greatness.
New Jersey Devils goalie Martin Brodeur goes for the big win Tuesday in Newark vs. Chicago.
It’s the win that would put him one up with seemingly years to go in the quest to move past Patrick Roy (551) and into the column of singular goaltending greatness: most win by a goaltender.
Feel free to tack on the word: ever.
The NHL Guide and Record Book doesn’t use that word and we shouldn’t either.
"Records are made to be broken" isn’t just a cliché, it’s a fact and even if Brodeur doesn’t break the record Tuesday at home vs. the Blackhawks, it will fall before this season ends.
After that happens it will rise again and again and again as every wins adds another notch in the record books and another line in Brodeur’s saga of personal and team greatness.
That "team" part is important. Brodeur has acknowledged that a great deal of his success comes from the players he’s played with, the teams Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello has put together in New Jersey and the style those teams play. It’s been a little different this season given that the Devils are not as offensively constricted as some past editions of the team, but for the most part in the Lamoriello era it’s been a brand of tight defense, timely scoring and overall "team first" effort that has been the hallmark of the franchise and that is a style of play any goalie would give up his right pads to be a part of.
But the record will go into the books as an individual record, a simple line that reads "most wins by a goaltender." Not most wins by a goaltender playing behind an exceptionally good defence that was often the definition of boring 1990s style NHL hockey.
That seems to irk a few people in hockey, but it doesn’t matter to me. Nobody asks how many of Wayne Gretzky’s record number of goals scored went into an empty net or bounced off an opposing player or came about simply because then Edmonton coach and general manager Glen Sather put him out on the ice to finish off a hat trick or to take advantage of the fact that Gretzky’s teammates weren’t against feeding a few pucks to pad their own point totals.
One could argue that Patrick Roy, the legendary goalie Brodeur matched in the wins column Saturday night in Roy’s "backyard rink" in Montreal, won more than his share of games on sheer individual brilliance, but he also was helped in part by playing a very long time behind some very fine hockey teams that provided their share of what amounted to "easy" wins.
That was often the case in Colorado.
It goes that way in sports, greatness comes to the forefront in large part because of individual talent combined with superior mental toughness, but one also needs a bit of luck or even vision and being in the right place at the right time and with the right team helps. Just ask any talented player who has spent season after season on a club that just doesn’t quite get there. Pat LaFontaine played his entire career with the three New York-based teams. He had a great career and the Hall of Fame numbers to prove it, but those numbers perhaps would have been a whole lot higher had he joined the Islanders at the start of their historic run to greatness in the 1980s rather than at the beginning of the end of it. It might have gone better in Buffalo had he been able to stay healthy or united with Alexander Mogilny and on a team with Dale Hawerchuk for longer than the brief time they were all together there. It might have been different with the Rangers had he not been saddled with one too many concussions and with a team that completed its goal of winning the long-sought Stanley Cup and well into its long, slow slide even before he arrived.
Not winning a Cup is something he likely will always regret.
Greatness has many components and great athletes know that. That’s why a part of me also wants to salute Roy on the gracious way he handled Brodeur tying the mark in Montreal.
A lesser man could have made that night painful by not showing up for the game. A much lesser man could have made it downright ugly by making an untoward comment or allowing someone he knows to do the same.
Roy didn’t do that. Always a fierce competitor and, on occasion, a man who would let his competitive nature get the better of him, "St. Patrick" as he is referred to in both Montreal and Denver, made a point of meeting with Brodeur before the game. He also went out of his way to say kind things about Brodeur including stating that he always knew it would be Brodeur who would run down his mark.
Roy made a point of noting how important it was to him that the family of the late Terry Sawchuk turned out when he topped Sawchuk’s mark and became the man who set the mark that Brodeur has been chasing. He understood the value of simply "being there" as his moment passed and a new one was set to begin. He also had the decency and good sense to recognize the one who had the mark before him.
Roy will never be a footnote to Brodeur. He was simply too great a netminder to ever be relegated to that position, but the record that he matched, then passed and, over his time, shattered, has been met by another. In time, maybe as soon as Tuesday, Brodeur will surpass it, then, we can assume, shatter it. Along the way he’s likely to break Sawchuk’s mark for shutouts as well. He has 100. Sawchuk finished with 103.
It’s a "double" that will only add to Brodeur’s legend and the view from here is more power to him.
When that happens Brodeur will have deserved every honour he gets, but before that day comes upon us in full force, I’ll linger a bit longer with the memories of both Sawchuk and Roy. They were the best of their respective times and they pushed the bar to heights that Brodeur is ready to surpass.
Sawchuk suffered an untimely death, but his family keeps his aura of greatness alive. Roy, by his actions on Saturday night, saw his record matched, but he too added to his greatness by handling the moment with class and with the dignity it deserved.
Their names will have been eased from the first line in the record books, but like the man who is about to replace them, they were the best of their time and should never be forgotten.
