The New Jersey Devils and New England Patriots both had their franchise’s greatest players leave at the end of their careers in surprising moves.
The New Jersey Devils have had a lot of great players play for them, especially since the year 1990. The greatest of them all is without question, Martin Brodeur. The news owning the sports world right now is the fact that Tom Brady is leaving the New England Patriots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Devils dealt with the same thing that the Patriots are about to deal with as they try to make the impossible transition from their greatest player in team history.
Tom Brady spent 20 years with the New England Patriots and won a remarkable six Super Bowl Titles in nine appearances. Martin Brodeur played 21 seasons with the New Jersey Devils and won the Stanley Cup three times in five appearances in the Finals. Brodeur ended his career by leaving New Jersey to play a handful of games with the St. Louis Blues.
It still remains to be seen on what the future holds for Tom Brady as far as success, but Brodeur wasn’t all that successful with the Blues. He went 3-3 with St. Louis and a .899 save percentage and a 2.87 goals-against average. It wasn’t the worst in the league, but it wasn’t the legendary Brodeur that played in New Jersey.
It was very strange to see Martin Brodeur pull on the Blues sweater. It was a sight that all Devils fans thought they would never see. What made it easier was the fact that they had Cory Schneider to come in and take over the net for Brodeur. Schneider has struggled in recent years, but makes no mistake, Schneider was one of the elite goalies in the game in his early Devils days. The Devils were unable to score enough goals to ever take advantage of Schneider in his prime but he was certainly great in Brodeur’s place.
It is the business of sports, unfortunately, to see stuff like this happen. Legends never want to stop playing but sometimes their organizations need to move on. That is why you often see things like this happen at the end of a career of a legend.