Three Periods: Martin Brodeur's incredible career; AHL moves to California; NHL notes

Nicholas J. Cotsonika’s Three Periods column appears on Thursdays. This week’s topics include Martin Brodeur’s incredible NHL records, the AHL’s new Pacific Division, the NHL’s stats revolution, the NHLPA’s stats concerns, the World Cup and the Olympics.

FIRST PERIOD: Brodeur’s records will stand for a long, long time

The best line of the press conference came at the end, when Martin Brodeur was asked about falling short of 700 wins.

“Yeah, 691,” he said. “It’s not too bad.”

Laughter.

“I wish I could have played more games,” he added. “It’s all these lockouts. I got killed on it.”

Ha. Not too bad? Brodeur has 140 more wins than the next guy, Patrick Roy, and 207 more than the next guy after that, Ed Belfour. With 125 shutouts, he has 22 more than the next guy in that category, Terry Sawchuk.

Think about that. Don’t let it get lost amid the oddity of Brodeur retiring with the St. Louis Blues and joining their front office Thursday after compiling all but three of his wins and one of his shutouts with the New Jersey Devils.

While winning the Calder Trophy, four Vezina Trophies and three Stanley Cups – plus two Olympic gold medals – Brodeur separated himself from every other goaltender in hockey history by far. It doesn’t make him the greatest of all-time or even the best of his era, but it helps make him one of the greatest and a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Brodeur benefitted from playing for a Devils team that used a suffocating defensive style and had great success for many years. He benefitted from rule changes during his career – 4-on-4 overtime in 1999-2000, which turned some ties into wins, and the shootout in 2005-06, which helped him add 42 wins. Roy retired in 2003, Belfour in 2007.

But Brodeur has a point about lockouts. He lost part of the 1994-95 season, all of the 2004-05 season and part of the 2012-13 season. Roy went through only the first lockout, Belfour the first two. If not for the lockouts, the gap between Brodeur and his peers probably would be greater.

And Brodeur deserves credit for his skill, durability and longevity. He handled the puck so well he helped spur another rule change in 2004-05, this one cutting down on an advantage. The NHL painted a trapezoid behind the net and started penalizing goalies for touching the puck in the corners. He played at least 70 games in a season 12 times. Say what you want about him hanging on too long, but he wouldn’t have been able to keep playing until age 42 unless a team was willing to sign him.

Brodeur’s records will be hard to break. The Florida Panthers’ Roberto Luongo is now the active leader in wins with 390 and in shutouts with 68. He turns 36 on April 4. The New York Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist has 332 wins and 55 shutouts. He turns 33 on March 2. The Pittsburgh Penguins’ Marc-Andre Fleury is in perhaps the best position. He has 310 wins and 34 shutouts and turned 30 on Nov. 28. Still, he needs to keep racking up wins for more than another decade and increase his shutout rate considerably.

Someday someone might hit 692 wins or even 700. Someday someone might reach 126 shutouts. But if that day comes, no matter what happens with the rules or the labor situation, it won’t be for a long, long time.

SECOND PERIOD: Notes on Brodeur, AHL’s Pacific Division and NHL’s stats revolution

— “I know I can play,” Brodeur said. He’s saying no to being a third goaltender, not admitting he can’t win anymore. He’s making the decision, not letting it be made for him. A fine distinction, but an important one. “The thing about hockey for me, I’m really competitive, but I love to have fun,” he said. “I’m leaving the game with a big smile on my face. I don’t think if I would have done that last year it would have been the case.”

— Brodeur said he wasn’t interested in going to another team. “I’ve played 21 years in one organization and a month-and-a-half somewhere else, and I didn’t want to start moving around,” he said. “To be in the same situation somewhere else didn’t really attract me that much.” But the truth is, there was nowhere for him to go. Brodeur wanted to play for a contender. What contender was looking for a 42-year-old goaltender with an .899 save percentage?

— Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello is on record saying Brodeur will be back with the Devils. Brodeur was less certain. “I’m committed to stay here through the end of the season, hopefully as long as we can, that’s for sure,” Brodeur said. “There’s no commitment one way or the other that I’ll go back to New Jersey or stay in St. Louis. I just want to make sure I enjoy what I’m going to do, and I’ll make a decision when it’s time.” Brodeur might want to see how it goes. But most likely this means he is loyal to the Blues for giving him a shot this season, wants a shot at a Stanley Cup in some capacity and isn’t going to talk about another job in another organization. He said he kept in touch with Lamoriello even while he played with the Blues. “For anybody that thinks me and Lou are not on the same page, everybody’s wrong,” he said.

— The AHL will create a Pacific Division when five NHL teams move their affiliates to California next season: the Anaheim Ducks, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks. Teams in the west with affiliates in the east have been at a disadvantage. This will allow them to shuttle players up and down for whatever reason – performance, injuries, salary-cap savings – without having to fly them across the continent. This will allow them to evaluate and mentor their minor-leaguers better. In the case of the Sharks, whose affiliate will practice and play in the same facilities under a different name, this will allow the big club and the farm club to mesh seamlessly.

— This highlights what has happened since the Kings entered the NHL in 1967, the Sharks entered in 1991 and the Ducks entered in 1993. “Five years ago, we started a high school league in the Southern California area,” said Ducks GM Bob Murray. “We had two teams. Today we have 41. Two years ago, one team from our area won the national championship. Hockey is growing in California and the West Coast, and this is going to take that one step farther ahead.” Said NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly: “This doesn’t happen 10, 15 years ago.”

— NHL.com will overhaul its statistics beginning in February, cleaning up usual stats, adding historic stats and including “enhanced stats” – Corsi, Fenwick, PDO, zone starts and more. Look for more detail Feb. 20, the day before the Los Angeles Kings play the San Jose Sharks in a Stadium Series game in Silicon Valley. The NHL has sent a “save the date” message to the media about an “innovation event” at Levi’s Stadium. “It’ll be much deeper, much richer, much more usable from a fan standpoint,” said NHL chief operating officer John Collins. It will be much more interesting from a contract standpoint, too, because the enhanced stats will now be admissible in arbitration. Agents say it will help make better arguments for players’ values. But remember: Teams can use the same data to make counterarguments, and there is a salary cap. If some players’ value goes up, others’ goes down.

— Now that puck- and player-tracking has been tested at the skills competition and the All-Star Game, the NHL, the NHL Players’ Association, the TV broadcasters and Sportvision need to discuss what happened and what happens next. There is optimism this could be more accurate than tracking things like shots and ice time by hand. There is excitement this could help TV broadcasts – showing puck trails on replays to reveal deflections, showing how players match up by time on ice together, et cetera. “You’d like to think for all those reasons we’ll find a way to navigate through concerns that it will be used against a player,” said Hank Adams, the chief executive officer of Sportvision. “If it’s done this way comprehensively as a league deal, everybody has access to the data. It’s all a level playing field.”

— How could it be used against a player? The NHLPA is concerned about “meaningless stats.” One example: speed. It’s cool to know how fast a player skates. It could illustrate that he’s an amazing athlete or that hockey is a hard game. But in terms of performance, what is the context? What does it mean? “The question is not whether I’m faster than you are getting to a certain place,” said NHLPA executive director Don Fehr said. “It’s whether we get there when we’re supposed to be there. It’s positioning, and it’s ice sense.”

— Another example: ice time. The NHLPA might not want coaches monitoring ice time in real time. Mathieu Schneider, an NHL defenseman for 20 seasons, now Fehr’s special assistant, pointed out how Detroit Red Wings coach Mike Babcock used to rest players toward the end of the regular season. “He would say, ‘Do you want to stay in the lineup and play 20 minutes, or would you rather sit out a night?’ ” said Schneider, who played for Babcock in Detroit in 2005-06 and ’06-07. “We used to always tell him we’d rather sit out a night, because if you play one or two games 20 minutes and then you go back and you play 25, 26 minutes, it’s a jump. So there is a danger that coaches could easily make that leap and start pulling guys not necessarily based on what’s going on on the ice but on what they’re looking at on an iPad. I think the feel is as important as anything for coaches and guys.”

THIRD PERIOD: Notes on the World Cup and Olympics

— From a pure hockey perspective, the format of the World Cup of Hockey disappoints. It’s not a true best-on-best, nation-on-nation tournament when it includes a team of otherwise left-out Europeans and a team of 23-and-under North Americans – and that 23-and-under team keeps players off Team Canada and Team USA. But the format is supposed to be a one-time thing for 2016, and from a business perspective, it makes sense. It adds a third North American team – more North American content – in Toronto. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said every game is expected to sell out. The Globe and Mail reported TSN bid $28 million to $32 million for the Canadian TV rights and lost to Rogers, which has NHL rights and is thought to have had the chance to match. Sources say the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association expect to generate more than $100 million in total revenue. That’s a lot of money for a two-week tournament, even considering the fall of the Canadian dollar.

— This idea was floated as the World Cup format was debated: To keep the 23-and-under North Americans from facing Canada and the United States – and increase the chances of a Canada-United States final – put those teams in the same pool with the rest of Europe and have each team play each team in the other pool in a round robin. Among the issues in that scenario: Each team would play four round-robin games instead of three. Canada and the United States would not meet in round robin and might not meet at all.

— Is the NHL done with the Olympics? Depends on whom you ask. The owners don’t want to go, and league officials seem pessimistic. The players do want to go, and union officials seem optimistic. They agree on one thing: A lot depends on whether they receive concessions in Pyeongchang like they did in Sochi – insurance costs, travel costs, access, et cetera. Serious talks have not even started with the IIHF and the IOC, but most expect a decision to be made sooner than last time.

— NBC has paid billions for NHL and Olympic rights in the United States. It certainly would prefer NHL players go. But it might not pressure the NHL to participate in Pyeongchang. It might not care as much as you might think. If NHL players stay home, NBC could air other events – say, more figure skating – or hockey in whatever form it takes. One TV perspective: “It’ll still be Olympic hockey, and it’ll still outdraw the NHL’s ratings.”

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