Martin Brodeur became the NHL’s all-time leader in shutouts last night in a 4-0 win over the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. In Pittsburgh, no less. It was his third shutout of the season and 104th of his career, which passed Terry Sawchuk’s former record. That mark had stood for 39 years.
“I don’t get nervous, but tonight I was a little nervous,” Brodeur admitted to The New York Post after the game.
“When you look at some records and see how long they’ve lasted, it’s pretty amazing.”
104 shutouts truly is an amazing feat, especially when you consider they’ve come in 1019 career starts, which averages out to a shutout just under every 10 (9.8) starts. He has 10 or more shutouts in a season four different times and he has also racked up 29 shutouts in 290 post-lockout (as in post-clutching & grabbing trap hockey) starts.
Brodeur, quite simply, has been the picture of excellence for years and years and years. It’s a testament to not only his skill level, but also the strength of the New Jersey Devils organization over his career. But as much as the two factors of his talent and the franchise’s stability do go hand in hand, don’t let captain Jamie Langenbrunner catch you saying Brodeur is nothing without this team.
“Wayne Gretzky played on an offensive juggernaut. Is Wayne Gretzky any less of a player because of that?” Langenbrunner told The Post.
“Like I said when I handed him the puck, it’s been an honour playing with him and it’s good to be a part of history.”
POOLIE SIGNIFICANCE
In fantasy hockey, a number of formats will give you bonus points for every shutout your goaltender posts. Even the pools that don’t count them still benefit from their significance since each blanking makes a noticeable drop in the goals against average and helps to raise the save percentage as well.
After Monday night’s action, Brodeur pulled into a six-way tie for fourth in ’09-10 NHL shutouts with three of them. Craig Anderson, Miikka Kiprusoff, Cristobal Huet, Tomas Vokoun and Antti Niemi (in only nine starts, which is unreal) also have three apiece. Ryan Miller, Ilya Bryzgalov and Tim Thomas currently lead the league with four each.
To give you an idea of how difficult and fickle the world of shutouts can be though, which helps to explain how truly significant Brodeur’s accomplishment was last night, let’s look at a few cases from recent seasons.
Steve Mason took home the Calder Trophy last year as the NHL’s top rookie and he did it on the strength of 10 shutouts in his 61 starts, which led the entire league. This year? Ouch. Mason’s struggles and those of his Columbus Blue Jackets have been well-documented. Coach Ken Hitchcock recently said Mason is no longer even the undisputed number one goaltender on this team; instead going with a “win and you’re in” philosophy with Mason and Mathieu Garon. Mason just got his first shutout of this season December 9th vs. FLA.
Incidentally, Pascal Leclaire of those same Jackets had nine shutouts the year prior to Mason’s breakout. Leclaire only started 12 games the following year thanks to his own struggles before his season-ending injury.
Look at Henrik Lundqvist, who is playing some of the best hockey of his season right now for a desperate New York Rangers team that is fighting for its playoff life. He recorded 10 shutouts in the ’07-8 campaign, which was the league’s best total. Those 10 blankings doubled his prior season of five shutouts. In the one-and-a-half seasons since then, The King only has four shutouts. Has his game dropped off since then? Not so much. Read on. Again, remember how fickle Lady Luck can be when it relates to recording a full 60 minutes with no goals against.
While he may only have four shutouts since that stellar 10-shutout campaign, he has allowed only ONE goal in 25 different games in that span. Do you know how many ridiculously unlucky breaks can go against a goalie in those situations? 25 games of one goal against in that short period of time. Six of them have come so far this season and he had 19 of them last year. Lundqvist has 21 shutouts in 292 career starts, which is an average of about one every 14 starts in his five-year career.
Brodeur, you’ll remember, has averaged one for every 10 starts over 16 seasons. And counting.
He really had to work for last night’s record-breaking shutout with 35 saves, but he also had some good fortune with a Sidney Crosby post and Brodeur knows how many things have to go your way to get a single shutout… let alone 104 of them.
“They made me work for it. I had a little luck and every goalie should have that,” Brodeur told The Post.
THE REST OF THEM
The next active goalie on the NHL’s all-time shutout list is Chris Osgood, who has 50 shutouts in 700 starts. One every 14 starts.
Evgeni Nabokov and Roberto Luongo have 49 apiece. Nabokov’s average is about one for every 10.5 starts, while Luongo is at one for every 11.3 starts. He has 22 of his 49 shutouts in 230 starts with the Canucks, which is around a 10.5 start-per-shutout ratio.
Skipping down the list a bit, Kiprusoff is 42nd all-time with 33 shutouts in 402 starts since he broke into the league. That’s one for every 12.2 starts.
Late-bloomer (in terms of his NHL career) Niklas Backstrom, who is only in his fourth season in North America, has totalled 18 shutouts in 194 starts with what had been the defensively-conscious Minnesota Wild. That’s still only a 10.8 average. A fantastic ratio, to be sure, but even that doesn’t compare with what Brodeur has done over a much longer period of time.
How about two of the goalies who are right there with Brodeur in the discussion of the best goalies in league history?
Dominik Hasek, who won six Vezinas and back-to-back Hart Trophies, started 714 times in his illustrious career and The Dominator had 81 shutouts, which is one for every 8.8 starts. That even bests Brodeur (9.8), but since Hasek didn’t even play his first NHL game until some eight years after being drafted, we’ll never really know what might have been.
Patrick Roy, who has lost several all-time marks to Brodeur recently, started 1003 games. He posted 66 shutouts in that time, which averages out to around one for every 15.2 starts. Awesome career, to be sure, but even he can’t touch Brodeur in that category.
Bottom line: Martin Brodeur has been a beast between the pipes for a long, long time. He does it with smallish, dated goaltending equipment that is basically hockey’s equivalent to a typewriter compared with a top-of-the-line laptop, but it hasn’t stopped him from accomplishing greatness that will stand the test of time. He’ll also likely start for Team Canada at the Olympics in February, where he’ll have a chance to add to his already-legendary resume.
The 37-year old netminder has two seasons remaining on his contract after ’09-10. Will he play beyond that? We’ll know when we know, but in the meantime hockey fans and poolies alike should soak up every minute played of one of hockey’s all-time marvels.
We may never see that level of greatness for such an extended period of time again.