THN.com Blog: With SO record tied, Brodeur's next feat is Roy's all-time wins

Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur at the 1998 NHL All-Star Game. (Getty Images)

Ken Campbell
2009-12-08 13:35:00

Now that Martin Brodeur has tied Terry Sawchuk’s all-time career record for NHL shutouts, he can now set his sights on becoming the true all-time wins leader in NHL history.

But first things first. With his ticket to the Hockey Hall of Fame already punched, Brodeur padded his credentials even more Monday night when he stopped 22 shots in the New Jersey Devils’ 3-0 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. That gives him 103 career shutouts to equal what was once thought an unassailable benchmark in NHL goaltending.

But the mark might just be considered that when Brodeur breaks it with his next shutout. You never want to say never, but considering Chris Osgood is currently next in line among active goalies with 50 shutouts and Evgeni Nabokov and Roberto Luongo each have 49, it’s at least fair to say this record will last a long, long time. Sawchuk held the all-time mark for 45 years – he recorded his 95th shutout to pass George Hainsworth late in the 1963-64 season – and there’s a good bet Brodeur will have the mark for at least that long.

You get the feeling that nobody who is currently playing is going to come close. All of Osgood, Nabokov, Luongo, Miikka Kiprusoff (33), Tomas Vokoun (34), Ryan Miller, Tim Thomas and Ilya Bryzgalov (15 each) are either near or in their 30s and they don’t even have half the number of shutouts Brodeur does.

Steve Mason recorded 10 shutouts en route to being named the NHL’s rookie of the year last season, but has zero so far in his second year and has a lot of making up to do. Marc-Andre Fleury has 15 career shutouts so far (also zero so far this season), but Fleury looks to be the kind of goalie who will let a couple in per game, then shut the door rather than pile up a bunch of shutouts. There’s also the matter that Brodeur is having a terrific season and looks to have a couple more ahead of him to continue to add wins and shutouts playing for a contending team.

But there’s another record Brodeur is now chasing and that is the real all-time wins record. Of his 575 wins so far during his career, 33 have come via the shootout, which is a vehicle for victories that Patrick Roy never had. But with 10 more wins in regulation time or overtime, Brodeur will pass Roy on that front as well.

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It has always been about wins for Brodeur and once he passes Roy on equal ground, it certainly won’t end the debate about who is the greatest goalie of all-time, but it will certainly add to Brodeur’s credentials in that department. With 33 shootout wins and 55 overtime victories, Brodeur has 487 wins in regulation time, which means he passed Terry Sawchuk (447), who didn’t have the benefit of either overtime or shootouts, a long time ago.

With the true wins record and the shutout mark to his name – and perhaps a second Olympic gold medal in February – perhaps then people will give Brodeur his due. It’s true Brodeur has played in a system that has given up fewer shots per game than his contemporaries faced, but what critics almost always forget when it comes to Brodeur’s wins is that he has historically also played for a team that scored fewer goals and gave him far less offensive support.

“We’re not getting four or five goals and they’re always tight games, so every time you win, you’re always doing it under the gun,” Brodeur said in The Top 60 Since 1967 book published by THN. “I just can’t sit and relax.”

Ken Campbell, author of the book Habs Heroes, is a senior writer for The Hockey News and a regular contributor to THN.com. His blog will appear Wednesdays and Fridays and his column, Campbell's Cuts, appears Mondays.

For more great profiles, news and views from the world of hockey, subscribe to The Hockey News magazine.

COMMENTS (11)

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claypunk Posted
(2009-12-23 10:44:19)

Ken Campbell: While you mention the fact that shootouts have padded Brodeurs record you fail to mention or don't realize that the 2005 lockout slowed him down for an entire year. Think if he had of had an extra season to add to his already outstanding numbers. Scary huh. Cheers!

seventieslord Posted
(2009-12-22 23:31:34)

Brodeur's lack of a high scoring team throughout his career is overstated. here is where the Devils have ranked in goals in each season of his career: 2nd 16th 25th 16th 9th 2nd 2nd 1st 27th 14th 14th 21st 25th 26th 15th An average of 14th. So about average. As was mentioned, Brodeur has faced the lowest shots against per game of any elite goalie of the past 30 years. His sv% has rarely been elite, almost always above average, occasionally top-10 in the NHL (six times), and twice in the top-3. That alone is underwhelming before you consider one of the biggest factors that influence sv%: Shot quality. A goalie who faces 30 shots in one game is likely to have a lower sv% than a goalie who faces 30 more difficult shots. Brodeur faces fewer shots than other goalies, but these shots are also of the lowest quality. A prime indicator of this is PP opportunities against (PPOA) - a team that faces more PPs will face many more high quality shots. Brodeur's Devils have been ridiculously amazing at avoiding taking penalties. Here are their league rankings throughout Brodeur's career, 1st meaning they took the fewest penalties. When they got 1st, I listed the percentage behind 2nd place that they were. 10% would mean that they had 270 PPOA and 2nd place had 300. Often the gap between NJ and 2nd place was like the gap between 2nd place and an average team. 3rd 1st (19%) 1st (7%) 1st (12%) 3rd 5th 11th 2nd 1st (3%) 1st (14%) 1st (5%) 1st (11%) 1st (11%) 5th 9th Brodeur's Devils had the fewest penalties in a 26-30-team NHL more times than they didn't! In total, they were in the top-3 11 times, never finishing lower than 11th. Their average placement was about 2.5. To put this into better perspective, over this time, No other team had the fewest penalties in the NHL more than ONCE. Only five teams were in the top-3 more than twice. (TB-6, BOS-5, OTT-4, SJ-4, MIN-3) and 16 teams were never in the top-3. Statistically speaking, New jersey has been more effective at avoiding penalties, than Mario Lemieux has been at winning scoring titles. This has had a very positive effect on Brodeur's save%, which, despite that positive effect, hasn't been especially dominant. When you are consistent and healthy, and get the chance to play 70 games a year for a team that has average offense, suffocating defense, and out of this world discipline, you are going to win some games, and a healthy percentage of them by shutout. Brodeur's history of winning cannot be completely ignored and brushed off. But there is simply too much evidence that the best arguments in his favour (career totals) are team-driven and that is why he will never be the all-time great that Roy and Hasek were. Personally, I would call him 7th-9th all-time.

janb55 Posted
(2009-12-10 15:50:20)

There's no doubt Brodeur will go down as one of the best goalies in the NHL. He'll probably set records that will be difficult (or impossible) for another goalie to break. But Sawchuck, Roy, and others are all time great goalies as well.

jimpah Posted
(2009-12-10 07:59:54)

I love following goalies, it's a little fascinating to watch them do their work. Maring Brodeur certainly is number one right now, and will be for a long long time, even though there are lots of goalies I like more nowadays.

vainzulmoly Posted
(2009-12-09 07:16:02)

ken sir ,writes very well and energetic article hockey i like most of them http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=2342790

lobach91 Posted
(2009-12-08 23:43:27)

lump on a log: just because Brodeur's era had goalies with bigger padding has nothing to do with his wins record because every goalie was more or less on the same level of padding! i.e. the argument only makes sense if Brodeur had big pads when everyone else had small pads, which is not the case. Either way, I agree, a win is a team thing. At the same time, this whole thing of Brodeur benefiting from a defensive system is only half true because frankly, I think it's more fair to say the Devils have been able to work such a system because of a great goalie rather than the other way around. Every good defence begins with good goal-tending because the defenders have to have confidence in the goalie's abilities. So yeah, Stevens and Daneyko were good, but they weren't the only reason why Brodeur was so good for so long.

stanleyish Posted
(2009-12-08 22:09:15)

wingsfan koolaid drinker: boo-f-ing-hooh. whaay- the trap. whaay haay-cluch and grab. whaay haay haay- Broduer playing the puck...left wing lock hypocrite crybabies.

lump_on_the_log_of_society Posted
(2009-12-08 18:06:15)

But to counter the "fewer goals scored for" argument, that probably just meant the Devils were better at scoring first, then sitting on their lead the rest of the game. Stevens, Dankeyo killing anyone with an ounce of hockey talent as they skated through the neutral zone while Brodeur sat back there handling fruitless dump-ins along the boards. Which is why the trap/clutch-n-grab was so lame. During those days, Brodeur was more of a third-defenseman. Besides, wins are really a team stat anyway. It's sort of silly to crown one person best-ever based on a stat that required 18 other guys to accomplish. Not to mention increased padding and other highly lax equipment restrictions. Though I should admit Brodeur himself was always on the lean-padding side of things, still, you can't argue that pads have gotten bigger and bigger and that he too has benefitted from that, where as netminders of earlier eras did not have the advantage of even wearing a mask. Best of his era? Yeah, though you could argue Hasek at his best in the late 90s, early 00's was THE best ever. Best of the last three decades? Not really... I'd give that to Roy, which is hard, being a Wing's fan. Best ever? certainly not. But people paid money to see him, and that's my only real criteria for Hall membership, so that's a given... not that you'd find many who would argue otherwise.

wooton Posted
(2009-12-08 17:37:46)

Ken was giving Brodeur fair praise, shootout wins are something to consider when comparing the two, although you could also consider that Brodeur missed a full season of wins during the lockout, in conclusion, Roy, Sawchuck and Brodeur are alltime great goaltenders and nothing is being taken away from that in this article.

aln424 Posted
(2009-12-08 15:35:21)

Are you kidding me muppethead?? Read this paragraph below. What more do you want Ken to do? Get down on his knees are grovel? "With his ticket to the Hockey Hall of Fame already punched, Brodeur padded his credentials even more Monday night when he stopped 22 shots in the New Jersey Devils’ 3-0 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. That gives him 103 career shutouts to equal what was once thought an unassailable benchmark in NHL goaltending."