With a 2-1 shootout win over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night, Martin Brodeur tied Bernie Parent's 23-year-old record single season wins record with 47.It's somewhat fitting that Parent's record was tied with a shootout win because that's what all the fuss (whatever fuss there is) is about -- shootout wins. You see, back in Bernie Parent's day, when games were still tied at the end of a five-minute overtime period, they just ended; no skills competitions to decide a victor, just one big sister-kissing tie for each team and all the fans. Unimaginable, I know.
Nowadays, of course, ties are for baseball and every overtime hockey game has a winner and a bigger winner. And the biggest winners with this whole set-up are the goalies, who get an extra chance to win a game where their generational predecessors would have been saddled with a draw.
Which brings us to Martin Brodeur tying Bernie Parent's single season wins record. Brodeur has won a League-high 10 of those games in shootouts. Bernie Parent won, well, none of his games in shootouts, but did tie a dozen games that year -- games that would have gone to the shootout had they existed. It's a safe bet that Parent, that year's Vezina Trophy winner as the League's best goalie, would have won enough of those shootouts that we wouldn't even be talking about Brodeur closing in on his record right now, much less tying or breaking it.
So the question is, if Brodeur breaks Parent's record with a win in one of New Jersey's two remaining games, is the record legitimate or does it deserve the dreaded asterisk?
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
I think that if the NHL is going to truly embrace this new era as anything legitimate, they have no choice but to omit the asterisk. Parent fans can asterisk to their hearts content, but an asterisk in any kind of record books only undercuts whatever legitimacy the league is trying to represent.
Even Parent says the new record shouldn't have an asterick. Its not like every goalie has a shot at breaking the record either. Considering Brodeur has had the most 40 win seasons before the Shootout was put into the game, he is very deserving of however many wins he finishes with this season. When Marc Denis gets 49 wins, then we can start making a stink about it.
Back in Bernie Parent's day, actually, if the two teams were tied at the end of regulation the game was declared a tie. Overtime was not played in regular season games from 1943 (due to World War II travel restrictions) to the start of the 1983-84 regular season. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983-84_nhl_season)
Wow - learn something new everyday. Thanks!
So Brodeur is getting second and third chances to win games that Parent never got. Of course, teams play differently according to the rules that are in place, so any comparison is necessarily somewhat apples-to-oranges.
Plus (and it's important to note here that I'm a HUGE Devils fan), what people seem to be missing is that while the goalies have more opportunities to win games, they've also got more opportunities to LOSE games.
You can't vilify Marty for playing in the 'New NHL', especially since Brodeur has always been vocally against the shootout anyway.
As far as I'm concerned, this is how the record books should read:
Brodeur: 48*
Parent: 47
*Indicates all wins including overtime wins.