New Jersey Devils: Comparing Martin Brodeur To Other Best Goalies Of All Time
By Nick Villano
One of the biggest thing to come out of quarantine is weirdly renewing the debate of best goalie of all time. Usually, we hear about the top three of Martin Brodeur, Patrick Roy and Dominik Hasek, but there are three others that make the debate interesting.
Obviously, we are going to be extremely biased when it comes to who is the best goalie of all time. Martin Brodeur was a man we watched closely for more than two decades as he dominated the league in his own way. He became the leader in wins, shutouts, games played, 40-win seasons, playoff shutouts, and most wins in a season. He also leads goalies in goals in a career and assists in a season.
Those records would obviously put someone in the conversation for greatest of all time. Wayne Gretzky‘s records is one of the main reasons why there’s not a huge discussion for who’s the best hockey player of all time. For someone to hold all the records, they are automatically in the conversation for best of all time.
Most of the time when people try to knock Brodeur’s argument for best of all time, those against it will bring up that he played behind a defense of Scott Niedermayer, Scott Stevens and Ken Daneyko. Well, they tend to forget that Brodeur literally played 10 seasons after Stevens retired and Niedermayer left for the Anaheim Ducks. He won two Vezina Trophies and was in the top three two other seasons. He wasn’t a product of his defense, in fact he made that defense better with how well he played the puck.
Think about this, he spent his entire career playing two completely different styles. He was very, very good winning Stanley Cups in the 90s and early 2000s. Brodeur became great when everyone left and he was still the best goalie in the league.
So, as people continue their arguments of “best of all time”, we put Brodeur one on one with each and every goalie who has an argument. How does he square up against the players that usually try to take his crown as best of all time? We start with possibly his biggest rival, or at least his most recent.