This is the third in a series of stories profiling the 2018 Hockey Hall of Fame induction class.

Gary Bettman | Jayna Hefford | Martin St. Louis | Willie O’Ree | Aleksander Yakushev

It was a foregone conclusion that the NHL’s all-time winningest goaltender would get automatic entry into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

And yet, isn’t it interesting that Martin Brodeur had to wait until his 10th NHL season to win his first Vezina Trophy?

This is where Brodeur’s story needs to begin. The idea that a superstar, first-ballot Hall of Famer who set all-time NHL goalie marks for wins (691), shutouts (125) and games played (1,266) somehow nearly a decade into his career still didn’t quite get the respect he truly deserved despite seven consecutive 35-plus win seasons at that point in his career.

Oh, there was a guy named Dominik Hasek – truly one of the greatest ever – who picked up six Vezina Trophies during Brodeur’s first nine seasons in the NHL, Brodeur twice the runner-up.

But there were also three other netminders that picked up Vezina Trophies during Brodeur’s first decade: Jim Carey (1996), Olaf Kolzig (2000) and Jose Theodore (2002).

Nothing against those guys, Kolzig had a splendid career and Theodore was out of this world during his Hart Trophy campaign of 2001-02.

But no matter how you cut it, it is truly bizarre that arguably the greatest netminder in the history of the game couldn’t get recognized for being the best at his position until 2003.

And for that, well, you’ve got the New Jersey Devils to blame. The defensive juggernaut that was the Devils of the 1990s and early 2000s created the perception that Brodeur didn’t need to be that great to stop pucks behind that suffocating system.

Which was a terrible exaggeration.

“Speaking personally, I know how good he was because every time I made a mistake he was there bailing me out,” Hall of Fame defenseman and former Devils teammate Scott Niedermayer told The Athletic. “So yeah, we were what we were in New Jersey, we played a certain way, Marty was a big reason we were able to do that because he was so good back there. It works both ways; we looked better because of him just as much as maybe he benefited from the way the team played.’’

Niedermayer paused for a moment and cut right to the heart of it.

“I don’t know, you can break things down any way, but I would take Marty in the net any time, any day, in any game,” Niedermayer said.

By the time Brodeur picked up his first Vezina, he had already won three Stanley Cups.

“The bottom line is, it’s a lot of fun winning as a team and as a group and winning Stanley Cups. That’s what it’s about,” Hall of Fame defenseman and former Devils teammate Scott Stevens said. “I think I’d rather play on that type of team than a team full of superstars who are trying to look after themselves. Marty fit right into our group. He was a great goaltender who made the save when we needed it.”

Winning trumps all.

“I never felt that any of our players got some of the recognition they should get individually,” former Devils GM Lou Lamoriello said. “But our team, which is the most important to have success, had success because of that. Because they thought winning first. How many Vezinas you win or how many first all-stars you get, the one thing they can never take away from you is how many Stanley Cups and having your name written on that. Individual awards are exactly what they are, but we play a team sport. I think that’s what made Marty so good, those things didn’t get in the way. If recognition is to come, it will surface. And that’s exactly what happened with Marty.’’

It did eventually come.

Brodeur himself points to the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics as a turning point for how the rest of the hockey world viewed him, fair or not.

“It’s funny how it works,” Brodeur said. “I had had some unbelievable seasons in the NHL but never really had a sniff for the Vezina Trophy because the Dominator (Hasek) was dominating everything. But I think just stepping out of being a New Jersey Devils player and winning gold with Canada at the Olympics, it really helped me out in terms of opening eyes to the hockey world. I won four Vezinas after my first Olympic gold medal. I think there was a direct connection.”

And yet Brodeur was quick to add in the same breath, he would not change a single thing.

“I wouldn’t trade my position with New Jersey for anything else,” Brodeur said. “Who cares that I didn’t get recognized for a while, if you win hockey games and you go to the rink with a big smile on your face because you know you have a chance to win every night, it’s a pretty good trade-off.”

The beginning

Raised in hockey’s religious cauldron of Montreal, Brodeur wasn’t just born into the game’s most passionate market, he was surrounded by sports in his own house. His late brother Claude was a minor-league pitcher in the Montreal Expos organization in the early 1980s before suffering a career-ending shoulder injury. Brodeur’s late father, Denis, was the long-time photographer of the Montreal Canadiens but before that was a goalie himself, winning a bronze medal with Canada’s hockey team at the 1956 Olympics.

“I was really fortunate that I grew up in a big sports family … my dad being around the NHL, it was definitely neat,” Brodeur said. “Having that support at home, where they knew what they were talking about and they were exposed at one time or the other in different aspects of sports. That was a great tool to lean on for me.’’

And how much fun it was to tag along with dad at work.

“My dad would give me a few bucks to carry his camera bag,” Brodeur recalls. “I would go to practice or a photo shoot. It was different back then. I was able to come in with my dad a lot. I remember when I was 12 or 13 years old and seeing Patrick Roy, I got to work on the set when my dad was taking pictures of him. I also remember when (former Expos great) Gary Carter came to the house.”

In fact, his father’s job as a sports photographer later impacted the way Brodeur handled the media. There aren’t many goalies who talk the morning of game days, and Brodeur would do it forever – and on the day of a Stanley Cup final game, to boot.

“People often asked me why I was so good with the media, well, a lot of it was because my dad in his job was denied access sometimes,” Brodeur said. “He would come and he wasn’t happy. As a kid, you see that, a professional athlete maybe not giving him the time of day, it made you think. So it sinks in as a young kid. I was fortunate enough to become a professional and play the sport I love but it was important to have respect for people who were doing their jobs.”

There comes a time in every NHLer’s journey when the light bulb goes on and they realize this could actually be a thing.

For Brodeur, he began to realize he was a decent prospect around 15 years old.

“For me, just before my midget AAA year, I got invited to a Team Quebec training camp to represent the province at a tournament in Calgary,” Brodeur said. “I had never really gone to a camp to expose myself to other people. So I didn’t know how I would fare. Because we really didn’t have good teams where I played, I was getting shelled every game. But I liked it, I had a lot of shots. I got to that camp and made the team. I ended up playing most of the games for Quebec in that tournament. And when I got to midget AAA I think some people started to recognize how good I was. Even for myself, I was like: ‘OK, I can play at that level.’ It seemed like it was starting after that.”

QMJHL teams started scouting him, as did U.S. colleges. It was on.

The 1990 NHL draft

Brodeur at the 1990 NHL draft. (Bruce Bennett Studios/Getty Images)

After his second season with the St-Hyacinthe Laser in the goal-happy QMJHL of the late 1980s, Brodeur readied himself for the 1990 draft in Montreal.

Not that he was overly anxious. He wasn’t a highly-touted prospect.

“I was ranked in the second round, like 30th or 31st overall,” Brodeur said. “And so, I wasn’t really nervous at all. I had met with 16 (of 21) teams. The Devils were one of them. I knew New Jersey had a lot of interest. But they were drafting so low (in the second round) that I didn’t think I would go there.”

The Devils entered the draft with the 11th pick overall and the 32nd pick overall. Brodeur figured that first pick was too high for him and the second pick was too low. So while the Devils expressed interest, he couldn’t figure out how it would happen.

Then Lamoriello did a Lamoriello thing. He traded picks No. 11 and 32 to Calgary in exchange for picks No. 20, 24 and 29.

“We had a pretty high pick that year and we knew that Calgary was very interested in (higher-ranked goalie prospect) Trevor Kidd,” recalls Lamoriello. “So we went to them and made the trade.”

The Devils used pick No. 20 to select Brodeur, making him a first-rounder after all.

Of course, had Lamoriello known he was drafting the future all-time wins leader, he would not have traded down.

“We would have traded up!” laughed Lamoriello. “And I say that because it’s the truth. But he’s had such an incredible career with the grace and humility that you would ask in anyone. To this day he’s that way.”

Where Lamoriello and Brodeur differ on that draft day was recalling their first conversation.

“I remember sitting with him in Montreal talking about the process when we drafted him and what we thought would transpire in terms of going back to junior, playing in the American League, and you couldn’t have written a better book,” Lamoriello said.

“I don’t remember,” Brodeur said of the meeting, laughing. “First of all, I didn’t really understand English that well at that time.”

The path laid out

The 1991-92 season was Brodeur’s last in junior. He got a late-season recall to the Devils, which caught him by surprise, and he appeared in four games.

“I was 19 years old. Next thing you know I’m in the NHL,” Brodeur said. “Then there was a (10-day NHL players) strike (in April), so I went back to junior. Everything was crazy.”

If Brodeur thought that sample size of NHL action was going to lead to more in the big show in 1992-93, he quickly found out he was wrong.

“Lou wanted a path for me to become an NHL player. So the following year, I didn’t even play a preseason game, he sent me right down to Utica (AHL). I was devastated,” Brodeur said. “I had been able to play a few NHL games the year before and I felt comfortable. I thought I would get a sniff at it at camp, but Lou said, ‘We told you that you’re going to play a couple of years in the minors.’ That was just the plan they had for me.”

It has been Lamoriello’s way for many years, with few exceptions.

“Sometimes our young players forget what is needed,” Lamoriello said. “Everyone wants everything yesterday rather than having the patience that is needed. In this day and age, you have to force yourself to make those right decisions. It’s better a little late than too soon … Timing is everything, and when he did come in, no one ever looked back.”

Lou Lamoriello and Brodeur after the goaltender’s 500th win. (Len Redkoles/NHLI via Getty Images)

After a season in the AHL and an offseason trade that sent goalie Craig Billington to Ottawa in a package deal for netminder Peter Sidorkiewicz, suddenly opportunity arose when Sidorkiewicz was injured to start the season.

“That gave me the chance to start the year with the Devils,” Brodeur said. “And I never let it go after that. I wanted to play as many games as I could and play as well as I could. It was the perfect storm having (head coach) Jacques Lemaire there and a great system. Also having Jacques Caron as my goalie coach, a French guy; he took me under his wing and he was like a father figure to me. I just didn’t let go after that. I put my foot in there and was determined that I wouldn’t let go.”

He split starts fairly evenly with Chris Terreri in the 1993-94 season, allowing Brodeur to learn both in net and on the bench.

“I learned to play the game the right way,” Brodeur said. “I sat and watched and learned what the league was all about while also being able to play every two games or so. That’s really the way they brought me up. I was ready for high-intensity competition. The following year I was able to take the reigns of the No. 1 goalie, play a shortened season, and our team won the Stanley Cup. Everything happened fast but I was ready for it because the organization did the proper things with me. They didn’t rush me into anything. They didn’t put me in positions where I couldn’t handle myself. I grew my confidence from there.”

From there, well, Stanley Cups in 1995, 2000 and 2003, and eight 40-win seasons, and so much more.

Team Canada

One of the first things Brodeur noted when we began our conversation was that it really hits home for him that it’s not the NHL Hall of Fame, but rather the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Team Canada means a ton to him. It’s always been clear as day that wearing the red Maple Leaf was an absolute point of pride.

“I owe a lot of gratitude to Hockey Canada, there’s no doubt,” said the four-time Olympian. “All the invites, especially early on, it was important to me.”

He didn’t make the world juniors, which he duly noted, so the 1996 IIHF men’s world championship was his first international foray.

“I was on a playoff team so I didn’t get many chances to go to the world championships but that one year we didn’t make the playoffs in ‘96, I had the opportunity to play in Austria for Canada for the first time. It was fun,” he said. “We got the silver medal. But it was a good preparation for the World Cup of Hockey that was coming in the fall.”

Brodeur played for Canada at the 1996 and 2004 NHL-NHLPA World Cups, but he’ll long be remembered for helping Canada end its 50-year Olympic gold medal drought in men’s hockey in 2002.

He began the tournament as the backup to Curtis Joseph, but after Sweden crushed Canada in the opener and an entire nation went into full panic mode (it’s important to remember the national angst after Canada didn’t win gold at the first NHL Olympics in 1998, which led to Team Canada needing to win gold in Salt Lake City – or else), the late Pat Quinn made the gutsy call to bench his own Toronto Maple Leafs netminder and insert Brodeur.

“We had three high-profile goalies in 2002: Joseph, Brodeur and Eddie Belfour,” recalled veteran coach Ken Hitchcock, a member of the coaching staff in Salt Lake City. “When Pat made the decision to switch off of Cujo after the Swedish game and go with Marty, that was a big hit for Pat to do that.”

What Hitchcock especially remembers was Brodeur’s demeanor through it all. Which both impressed yet terrified the coaches.

“The thing that stood out in that tournament was his calmness,” Hitchcock said. “We kept thinking, ‘Does this guy know he’s starting?’ Because he had the mannerisms and the body language of just another forward or defenceman. There was a casualness, a confidence about him that was just … Marty was the first goalie in the NHL I had seen behave like this. I said to Pat one day, ‘He does realize he’s playing tonight, right?’ He was just so calm and so in control.’’

Brodeur was outstanding in net, Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic led the way up front, Canada finally won gold, and a country partied like crazy.

Martin Brodeur celebrates after Team Canada beat the U.S. to win gold at the 2002 Olympics. (Tim De Waele/Getty Images)

The Team Canada net was then his for almost a decade. He was part of a winning team at the 2004 World Cup of Hockey, earned silver at the lockout-infused 2005 men’s world championships, and was part of the disappointing Olympic quarterfinal exit in Torino before the 2010 Vancouver Olympics arrived.

A 5-3 round-robin loss to Team USA in Vancouver spelled the end for Brodeur, head coach Mike Babcock making the difficult decision of benching Brodeur to kickstart his team under immense pressure in a home Olympics.

“It wasn’t a long meeting or anything like that,” Babcock said of the conversation with Brodeur. “But I liked the kind of pro he was; what he did, how he never got in the way. It’s about the team. Great players win. That’s what they do, they win championships in a team sport because they make other people better and they make other people accountable. That’s what Marty did.

“I had to switch Dom Hasek and (Chris) Osgood in our (the Red Wings’) 2008 Cup run. There’s a superstar. If you think they’re happy, they’re not happy. But they’re about winning,” Babcock said.

Roberto Luongo and Team Canada went on to glory, and Brodeur never made a peep.

Just like Joseph had his chance ripped away in 2002 and Brodeur took advantage, eight years later the roles were flipped.

“And the end of the day, you play until you lose,” said Brodeur rather matter-of-factly. “I knew going into Vancouver, I couldn’t afford to lose one game, because Luongo was waiting and it was his turn. Just like Carey Price was waiting after Luongo and now it’s Carey’s team. That’s the beauty of it. I think I had a pretty good run. I can’t complain about anything.”

Oh, he was beyond disappointed at the time. But Brodeur didn’t let it become a distraction. He put Team Canada first. And that is something Hitchcock, also part of that Olympic staff in 2010, will never forget.

“I was more impressed with Marty in 2010 in some ways than I was in 2002,” said Hitchcock. “This is a Hall of Fame guy giving up the net to Roberto. And we all knew Marty would be disappointed but he was the ultimate team guy when it was really uncomfortable in that moment. He saw both ends of the spectrum and yet, in both instances, he was the ultimate team guy. It was so impressive the way he handled himself and his body language and disposition around the players in 2010. It showed you a lot about how much he knew about winning, that it can’t always be a perfect fit and yet you still got to get the job done.”

To this day, Brodeur feels a strong connection to Hockey Canada, which is why he was co-GM of Team Canada for the men’s world championships last year along with Sean Burke and also helped advise Burke on the Olympic men’s team for South Korea.

“To me, anyone who has had the chance to play for Team Canada, we are indebted to them,” Brodeur said. “To me, it’s like the 32nd NHL organization, that’s how unbelievable they are.’

The personality

Brodeur has had bad days just like the rest of us. His much-publicized separation and divorce from his first wife, which filled the tabloids, wasn’t an easy time.

But for the most part, every day is a good day in the world of Martin Brodeur. His gregarious, relaxed personality was evident with media but more importantly lit up a dressing room.

“We probably took it for granted, really,” Niedermayer said. “But looking back at it now after some time has passed, I think it probably made us tremendously confident to look at our goalie, the most pressure-packed position in hockey, and he’s smiling and enjoying every minute of it. Whether it was a Stanley Cup final game or a practice in some small rink somewhere on the road, he was really enjoying himself and having fun.”

Niedermayer and Stevens were the bedrock of that Devils championship defense and both had low-key, actions-speak-louder-than-words personalities. Stevens in particular exuded intensity through his eyes. Talk about intimidating.

The goalie? Just another day in the park.

“Yeah, he enjoyed the game and he was pretty laid-back,” Stevens said. “That makes a good goalie usually if somebody is laid back and rolls with the punches. Marty was good at that. You could see that on and off the ice, that type of personality. But I mean at the same time, he was a real competitor. I can tell you in practice or in games, he never wanted to get beat. He wanted to stop every shot.”

Few goalies in the history of the game played the puck like Brodeur. Was it just a coincidence that in the middle of Brodeur’s career the NHL decided to bring in the trapezoid to limit the goalie’s ability to play pucks in the corner?

“Yeah, anything to get back at the Devils,” chuckled Stevens.

The Devils probably thought that was the case and, to some small degree, there was probably some basis to it, but not in total fact. A league source told The Athletic recently that the decision to adopt the trapezoid was multilayered and wasn’t centered around just Brodeur. In fact, Marty Turco at the time was another goalie that played the puck well but overall, the league and GMs of the time were concerned about the lack of forechecking and felt the trapezoid would help open things up a bit.

Just don’t tell the Devils of that era that.

What now?

Brodeur with his family when the Devils retired his number. (Ed Mulholland/USA TODAY Sports)

After his retirement in 2015 as a member of the St. Louis Blues – which was strange, to say the least – Brodeur tried his hand at management under Blues GM Doug Armstrong.

But after putting a few seasons in as assistant GM, Brodeur felt the toll of all those hours on the road was too much. He shifted gears after taking a job with the Devils as executive vice president, business development. The job allows him to work three days a week and keep his weekends for family.

“Right now I’ve changed a bit what I’m doing for a living,” Brodeur said. “I don’t know yet (about a future in NHL management). It’s been a fun couple of months with New Jersey. I’m learning a total different aspect of what a hockey team is. I’m getting my feet wet for now in this position and it’s been interesting.”

Why the switch?

“It was just a tough period last year, obviously not making the playoffs in St. Louis, me traveling a lot, I took on the assistant GM job for the Olympics and was co-GM with Sean Burke for the world championships, I probably spent about 50-60 days in Europe last year,” Brodeur said. “My contract was up with the Blues, I sat down with Doug Armstrong and he just wanted me to do more.”

Brodeur just couldn’t commit to that. He needed more balance in his life. The 46-year-old reached out to the Devils to see if there would be some kind of opportunity where he could step back a bit.

“They came up with this idea to come on board with them on the business side,” Brodeur said. “That really intrigued me. I made my own schedule with them. I’m working three days a week. I’m spending every weekend with my youngest son at home (in St. Louis), I get to see my kids’ activities. I think it’s still a big learning curve for me if I want to move eventually to a different position in hockey, to be able to master the business side and understand it. And I think they’re giving me the opportunity to do that. It’s been great.”

One day, years from now, perhaps a return to hockey ops. Perhaps run a team. Maybe, maybe not.

That can wait.

In the here and now, it’s about one final moment to put closure to a superstar playing career.

And on induction night at the Hockey Hall of Fame, he will have his sisters, Line and Sylvie, on hand and, of course, his wife and his five kids. His parents and older brother, meanwhile, will be there in spirit, no doubt.

“That’s a tough one,” he said. “For my parents and my big brother, it’s something you wish they were there to enjoy it with you. They were there for most of my playing career. So they got to experience some great things. This is the icing on the cake and I know they’ll be up there thinking about it and be really proud of it.

“It’s the ultimate, you never expect to be in the Hall of Fame.”

(Top photo credit: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)