the NHL record with his 104th career shutout, and maybe the only
surprise was how easily it came against the Stanley Cup champion
Pittsburgh Penguins.
Brodeur needed to make only a few
difficult saves while breaking Terry Sawchuk's shutout record, further
strengthening his case to be considered as the best goaltender to play
the game, and the streaking New Jersey Devils had little trouble
beating Pittsburgh 4-0 on Monday night.
Brodeur made 35 stops to break the
coveted shutout record only two games after setting the NHL mark for
regular-season appearances by a goaltender. The shutout record came in
his 1,032nd game over 16 seasons, all with the Devils.
Brodeur has long been compared to the
game's greats, and for obvious reasons — no other current-day goalie
can begin to compare to the 37-year-old, who is the only active player
in the top 22 on the career shutouts list. He has three shutouts this
season and six in his career against Pittsburgh. He broke the record
two weeks after beating Buffalo 3-0 on Dec. 7 to tie it.
As the game ended, his teammates
swarmed to congratulate him, and the remaining fans from the
standing-room crowd of 17,132 applauded as a congratulatory message
from Penguins owner Mario Lemieux was read on the public address
system.
"It's great, but I wasn't focusing on
it," Brodeur said. "I'm definitely happy it's passed and we can just go
play, and I don't have to answer the questions about it."
Brodeur is the NHL's winningest goalie with 580 wins, and he is 23-8-1 this season.
"When it got down to 10 minutes, five
minutes, everybody's thinking about it," teammate Zach Parise said.
"We're on the ice when a lot of these records are happening and it's
fun. … I don't think much needs to be said. It's all
self-explanatory, all the winning he's done, the shutouts, the [three
Stanley] Cups. It's unbelievable."
Brodeur's latest shutout came only
two days after he was pulled after the first period during a rare off
night, the Devils' 5-4 victory over Atlanta on Saturday during which he
left after allowing three goals in the first.
Brodeur, as he so often does, made
this one look easy as the Devils gave him plenty of support by taking a
1-0 lead in the first before scoring three times in the second to chase
Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Fleury has been playing as well as
any NHL goalie other than Brodeur with a 10-1-1 record and 1.80
goals-against average in 12 games, but he was yanked after allowing
four goals on 16 goals.
Pittsburgh came into matchup between
the NHL's two best-record teams with a five-game winning streak and a
13-2-1 record in the last 16 games, only to be dominated by New Jersey
at home for the third time this season. The Devils outscored the
Penguins 12-2 in winning all three games at Mellon Arena, where they
won't play again unless the teams meet in the playoffs.
Patrik Elias scored his fourth goal
in five games and Dean McAmmond and Zach Parise had three assists each
as the Devils won their fourth in a row to improve to an NHL-best
26-8-1. They won their fifth in a row, ninth in 10 games and 12th in
14, and are 27-9-1 in Pittsburgh since March 4, 1997.
Brodeur might be one of the few
visiting players unhappy to see the cramped, aging Mellon Arena shut
down after this season, given his 16-4 record there in his last 20
games.
"It's great that got it the way we did, in maybe our last game here," Brodeur said.
Brodeur's toughest save probably
came with the teams skating 4-on-4 and the Devils up 2-0 early in the
second. Evgeni Malkin got loose on a short breakaway, but Brodeur
easily turned aside his shot.
Penguins captain Sidney Crosby had a
good chance to end the shutout with about 90 seconds remaining, but his
shot struck the right post. Brodeur made a glove-hand save on Jordan
Staal's in-close shot with 42 seconds remaining.
Staal left a pool of blood on the
ice after being struck in the face by a puck about seven minutes into
the second period, but returned early in the third wearing a full face
shield.
New Jersey, a league-best 13-2-1 on
the road this season, took the lead on an unlikely goal by Bryce
Salvador, whose wrist shot from the left point eluded Fleury — who may
have been screened by teammate Sergei Gonchar — 4:39 into the game.
Salvador had only one other goal this season.
The Devils made it 2-0 with a
similar goal by Niclas Bergfors on a power play 23 seconds into the
second, his 12th. Bergfors' shot from the right point sailed under the
crossbar as Fleury appeared to be screened by defenseman Brooks Orpik.
Elias scored his eighth of the
season and fifth in eight games to finish a Devils flurry later in the
second, and defenseman Mark Fraser scored his second of the season to
make it 4-0 at 11:03 of the period.
Notes
New Jersey won its earlier
two games in Pittsburgh by 4-1 scores. … Parise has two goals and
five assists in three games against Pittsburgh. … New Jersey took the
Atlantic Division lead with 53 points to Pittsburgh's 51.