Simply the best...

The Devils grabbed three wins during our downtime over Phoenix and Chicago at the Rock sandwiched around a road win in Montreal before an expected letdown in Carolina after the historic win over the Blackhawks that saw Martin Brodeur become the games winningest all time net minder.
The loss to the Hurricanes was one that you could see coming especially with the Devils using Kevin Weekes in goal.

I wont be getting in depth on any of the games,regular "Hell Raisers" will return tomorrow with the recap of tonight's game against the Minnesota Wild.
Instead I want to talk about the greatness that is Martin Brodeur.
Frankly,this is a player that has always been vastly under appreciated and one could make a case that there have been few stars of his magnitude to be almost neglected in his attention from the media at large and to a lesser extent,the hockey media.

Martin Brodeur has been the one true star that the Devils franchise has had and it is quite a measure of pride in this age of player movement that the entire record was in a Devils uniform.
Oh,I know that Scott Stevens and Scott Niedermayer were stars too,but Stevens spent his early career in Washington and St,Louis and Nieds left town to play with his brother in Anaheim,so Marty is the only player to be developed and then stay with the Devils throughout his career.

I know many will prefer Patrick Roy and one can make a case for Roy,but Marty never had the talent in front of him that Roy had in either Montreal or Colorado.
Especially in Roy's Avalanche years,when the unlimited pocketbook of Colorado helped supplement the Sakic,Forsberg etc teams and were clearly the most talented team in the league.
Brodeur also was against the prevailing style of the goaltenders of the era as most (Roy included) by not using the butterfly as his way of stopping the puck.
Marty always used the lighter pads and got up and down to defend instead of so many others that use the butterfly and has slowly brought the mattress sized size pads in the game.
The game would improve so much if more goalies defended with their skills and quickness instead of relying so much on equipment (not that I would accuse Roy of that).
Brodeur even occasionally (See above photo) stacks the pads to defend and that is a past art that the huge pad gang never use..

By the time that Brodeur retires,he will own every record that a goalie can own with the exception of Glenn Hall's consecutive start record,which will never due to the changes in the game since Hall's day and that is the true test of greatness.
As great as Patrick Roy was,Marty's better and in this case the record book shows it so....

I will try to return later,but due to some medical issues with Teddy,I may not be able to.
Not sure on how that will work out,they were severe enough that I had to call into work and get the night off....
If I can,I will finally talk some Pirates for the Bucco boosters out there and consider myself finally caught up!!!!



Photo Credit-Unknown