In 1999, after Wayne Gretzky was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame the same year he retired, the board of directors for that institution eliminated the right of the selection committee to waive the mandatory three-year waiting period for any future honorees.



So even the NHL's greatest, like Martin Brodeur, must wait. And that seems silly to some who watched Brodeur's brilliant career.



"For guys like Marty or Gretz, the cream of the crop like Patrick Roy or Dominik Hasek, it's a no-brainer. When they retire, the next day -- or two months later -- there should be a ceremony putting them in the Hall of Fame," former Devils center Bobby Holik suggested.



Brodeur's greatness is undisputed. But the fact is, he was probably even better than we thought.



That's because, while he is the NHL's all-time winningest goalie and holds several other major records, Brodeur's resume would be even more incredible had three factors not gone against him:



1. He won four Vezina Trophies (2003, 2004, 2007, 2008), but could have won more. Between 1994 and 2001, Hasek won the Vezina six times.



"Some of my better years I didn't win the Vezina because I was up against Dominik Hasek," Brodeur told NJ Advance Media. "That first one I won, it was good to get that monkey off my back because I'd been a bridesmaid to Dominik for so long."



There is no bitterness.



"When you have a 1.87 goals-against average (as Hasek did in 1998-99) and play over 70 games, you should win the Vezina," Brodeur said. "And you know what? This guy was doing it on a (Buffalo Sabres) team that probably wasn't as good as ours.



"For a lot of years people said of me: 'Of course he has those stats. His team is so good.' And it's funny how it worked. When I won the (Olympic) gold medal in 2002, right after that is when I got all my Vezinas. None before. And I'd gone to three Stanley Cup Finals before that."



Should he have won more?



"Looking back, there were years I thought I was going to win it. If I'd never won one, I think I would have been a little more bitter," Brodeur said. "And, you know what? At the end I think I maybe got one that I didn't think I deserved as much. So I think it evens out at the end if you play long enough.



"I don't have bitterness at all about these things. If I had never won one, maybe I'd be bitter."



Which one was he surprised to win?



"I think the last one. I know I had a great year, but I thought (Roberto) Luongo had a pretty solid year, too," Brodeur recalled. "When I won it was, 'Wow. Thanks.' "



2. He never won the Conn Smythe Trophy. Many feel he should have won it in 2003, when Anaheim's Jean-Sebastien Giguere won it.



"You got a goalie who didn't play as good in the Finals when it really counts. Definitely without him they would have never been there, but at the end of the day it's whether you win the Stanley Cup," Brodeur said.



Could he have done any more to win it?



"It would've been pretty hard," Brodeur said. "Seven shutouts. Three in the Finals. One in Game 7.



"If it wasn't me getting it, it should have been (teammate Scott Niedermayer). I'll accept not winning, but it should have been the winning team. It should have been me or Nieder. In my mind, Nieder was probably the best player out there. That's just my point of view on that."



3. He changed the game. In 2005-06, the NHL added the trapezoid behind the net, restricting Brodeur and other goalies with exceptional stickhandling abilities from playing the puck outside that area.



Its been called the Brodeur Rule and he could've made an even bigger impact had he been allowed to continue playing the puck. But again, there is no bitterness.



"I could have been upset about it. But I felt that for them to take away the red line, that was not a bad trade-off for me," Brodeur explained. "I was able to read the play a little more, try to keep it in front of the goal line and fire a puck (up ice), especially in second periods. So I didn't mind as much as people thought I minded.



"I think the team (lost more). I think we probably spent more time in our zone because of that. And that maybe created more scoring chances against."



One aspect did bug him.



"The only part I didn't like is me playing the puck really helped my guys not getting run over - over and over. I took a lot of pride in that, and you can ask Dano (Ken Daneyko) or Scotty (Stevens),"Brodeur said. "Putting in the trapezoid prevented me from helping those guys and that killed me.



"Every time I made a mistake or didn't play the puck well and one of my players got hit hard, I felt really bad because I didn't do my job. But they prevented me from doing that job. That's what I didn't like. I couldn't really make plays from the corner, but my guys were getting beaten up more because I wasn't allowed to get there."



Brodeur, whose No. 30 will be retired by the Devils Tuesday night and who will be honored with a statue outside Prudential Center to be unveiled Monday, was even better than we thought.

Rich Chere may be reached at rchere@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Ledger_NJDevils. Find NJ.com on Facebook