Martin Brodeur is a great goalie; a no-doubt, first-ballot Hall of Famer; the winningest regular-season netminder in NHL history. Here comes the but …

But Patrick Roy remains the best goalie ever.

A fourth Stanley Cup in his career would have given the Brodeur-is-better crowd more of a leg to stand upon in its argument. With the New Jersey Devils down three games to none to the Los Angeles Kings in the current Cup Finals, it doesn’t look like it’ll get the chance to say that.

In the head-to-head matchup between former Avalanche and Canadiens goalie Roy and Brodeur, the tally remains: four Cups for Roy, three for Brodeur. The actual, head-to-head matchup between Roy and Brodeur in a Stanley Cup Finals will always remain: Roy 1, Brodeur 0. Colorado’s seven-game series victory over New Jersey in 2001 — when Roy was 35 and Brodeur 29 — made that the case.

Now, the head-to-head Cup Finals score is powerful argument enough that Roy was better. But here are a couple even more powerful reasons:

• Roy remains the only player in NHL history to win Conn Smythe Trophies in three different decades: 1986 and ’93 with Montreal, and 2001 with the Avs. Brodeur has never won a Conn Smythe.

Winning the playoff MVP three times in a span of 15 years not only showed Roy’s excellence over a long period, but it also showed how he was able to adapt from different eras, when the style of play — and the equipment — changed significantly.

• Indeed, when Roy broke in as a rookie in Montreal, goalie pads were still made of water-absorbing material that made quick movements all but impossible as a game wore on. Goalie equipment wasn’t as big when Roy first played either. When Brodeur came into the league, in 1993, the evolution in better, bigger equipment was starting. Roy was a beneficiary of that, too, but in those early years he was still winning Cups with two waterlogged mattresses strapped to his legs.

• Roy did not invent the butterfly technique in goaltending. Glenn Hall did that. But Roy evolved it and perfected it. He, essentially, changed the game with how the position was played.

Brodeur’s fans will throw the number 656 at you, the number of career regular-season wins. That’s tops of all time, and he broke Roy’s record of 551 a while ago. But Brodeur also has benefited from post-lockout rules that gave him wins from a shootout — in games that once would have finished as ties. Roy never had the chance for shootout wins, retiring in 2003.

But as long as we’re talking win totals, let’s mention a couple: 151 to 111. The 151 are Roy’s all-time playoff wins, the 111 belonging to Brodeur. Brodeur’s career playoff record is 111-90, to Roy’s 151-94.

If we’re talking career saves percentages, they are close enough (.913-.910 for Brodeur) to be fairly insignificant. Brodeur does have a whopping edge in shutouts (119-66).



But what of the shutout totals of the two goalies in their playoff careers? It’s 24-23 Brodeur — not such a whopping disparity when the games got bigger, eh?

Reading up on some old stories before writing this column, one pundit suggested there can’t be any debate at all anymore about who is the best goalie of all time — that it easily should be Brodeur. The reason, according to this analyst? Because “all the important records will be demolished by the time Brodeur is finished playing.”

Seriously? Regular-season season wins — helped along by new rules seven years ago — are more important than playoff wins and Stanley Cups and Conn Smythe Trophies?

Uh, no. They’re not. Brodeur is one of the best goalies ever, no doubt. But Roy is better.



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Adrian Dater: 303-954-1360 or adater@denverpost.com

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