Battle Of Hudson

Marty’s Better: For 20 years, nobody has been better than Martin Brodeur with the Devils. This is his moment.

“Nothing lasts forever even cold November Rain.”-Axl Rose, Guns ‘N Roses

In sports, no athlete lasts forever. The same way our favorite bands don’t. In a year where Derek Jeter is retiring with the Yankees, Martin Brodeur is about to take the ice for likely the final time for the Devils.

Since being drafted by GM Lou Lamoriello in 1990, it’s the only team he’s known. Once a 22-year old rookie who led the franchise to the Eastern Conference Final in ’94, he went on to become one of the greatest goalies in NHL history. After falling in gut wrenching fashion to the Hudson rival Rangers, Brodeur and company won the first of three Stanley Cups in an emphatic sweep of the Red Wings.

As it turned out, it was only the beginning for a prideful man from Montreal whose father Denis was a former goaltender turned photographer. If only Calgary had known better than to swap picks with New Jersey. Instead, they traded up and selected Trevor Kidd. The rest is history. Soon turning 42, Brodeur is a living legend. A three-time Cup winner (’95, ’00, ’03) who’s won four Vezinas, Olympic gold and been named a First Team All-Star three times, Brodeur is the all-time leader in wins (687) and shutouts (124). For at least one more time, Marty gets to add to that legend in the Devils’ final game against Boston at Prudential Center.

It’s sure to be emotional for both player and fans who grew up idolizing him. This is a truly special athlete that comes around once in a lifetime. Even though I’ve been on the opposite side of a great rivalry, it’s easy to admire what Brodeur has done. I might not have always agreed with his commentary but the man is a champion. Even in the twilight of his career, he outplayed opposite number 30 Henrik Lundqvist at age 40 to get the Devils to a fifth Cup Final in ’12. They fell short against the Kings but not due to Marty, who was stellar helping extend a series his team trailed 3-0 to Game Six before LA finally closed it out.

In an era where Lundqvist is lauded for consistency winning 30-or-more in eight of his first nine seasons, he’s never reached 40. Something Brodeur has done eight times over an illustrious 20-year career. Even in the shootout induced post-lockout era, it’s hard for a goalie to win 40. That makes the ’06-07 season when he won 48 seem impossible. All he did was go 48-23-7 posting a 2.18 goals-against-average with a .922 save percentage and 12 shutouts. Marty played 78 games. His durability is one of the remarkable aspects. For so long, the Devils didn’t need a backup. It was only a few years ago he won 45 games in 77 games posting similar numbers (2.24 GAA .916 9 SHO).

What’s made him special is his uncanny ability to rise to the occasion. By ’11-12, he was no longer invincible with a few injuries sidelining him. Pete DeBoer played Johan Hedberg, who did a solid job in relief. But once he was healthy, Brodeur again proved why he’s one of the all-time best. At a time when most looked at the Devils as an afterthought, he backstopped them past the Panthers, Flyers and Rangers avenging the ’94 Conference Final. At 40 years young, he finished that run 14-9 with a 2.12 GAA, .917 save percentage with one shutout. How many goalies can last this long and still deliver in the clutch? Not even childhood idol Patrick Roy stuck around forever.

Fast forward a couple of years and Brodeur isn’t what he once was. It happens. The body wears down and their reflexes are not the same. Think of the stressful position he’s played with relative easy due to a stand up style that relies more on challenging shooters rather than a classic butterfly. Sure. The statistics show a player in sharp decline. His save percentage has dropped off. Entering today’s match, he is at .901 yet has still won 18 games with a 2.52 GAA and three shutouts.

In a year where it was expected that Cory Schneider would be handed over the reigns, DeBoer has given Brodeur his fair share of starts. Something that hasn’t sat well with Hasan or other Devils supporters. When you compare their numbers, there’s no doubt Schneider is better. In his first year with the club, he finished 16-15-12 with a 1.97 GAA, .921 save percentage and three shutouts over 45 games. It’s true that Marty hasn’t made the decision easy by voicing his displeasure over not playing. You don’t become a star by having no ego. He’s a competitor and wants to still play.

What really turned fans against him was his criticism of Lamoriello on not doing enough to bring back Zach Parise. The former captain departed following the 2012 run back home to Minnesota where he is playing with childhood friend Ryan Suter. It’s not like he made the decision right away. The Wild blew him out of the water. I’m not sure what more could’ve been done. What complicated matters was Ilya Kovalchuk ‘retiring’ back to Russia to play in the KHL last summer.

It’s next to impossible to recover from losing your top two scorers. Another living legend Jaromir Jagr was recently named Team MVP for a tremendous season posting 24 goals and 65 points. His scoring dried up but anyone who watched closely knows he’s still been their best player generating chances. They just haven’t gone in. Throw in injuries to Adam Henrique and Ryane Clowe and it’s no wonder they fell short of the playoffs. That along with their shootout woes doomed them.

Brodeur’s recent commentary that the Devils settled for mediocrity was the final straw. Hasan already detailed that in another post. There’s no sense in rehashing it. I have my own observations but will refrain from commenting. Even now, Marty still believes he can play. That along with the trade deadline controversy which nearly saw him move to the Wild is why today will be his final game as a Devil. From an outsider perspective, it’s hard to fathom Brodeur in another jersey. On an emotional day that also includes popular Devils color analyst Chico Resch revealing that at 65, he’s hanging up the microphone after today, it’s sure to be memorable.

Even if you’re not a Devil fan, it’s the end of an era. Having gotten to work behind the scenes on the home telecasts back in ’00-01, I can say with certainty that both Brodeur and Resch are classy people. Of course, more so Chico who once credited me on air for a hat trick stat I mentioned before air for a Thrashers/Devils game. Sure. He’s a homer. But a lovable one who bleeds red and black. What’s wrong with that? I’ve seen quite a few Ranger fans taking shots. Have they not seen what our broadcast has become? We love Sam Rosen for the same reason. That’s part of the job of being a home team announcer.

For Devils fans, this is their moment. They should forget about their frustration for a day. One final send off for a guy who’s the all-time greatest Devil. Let the “Mar—ty, Mar—ty, Mar—ty!” chants rain down once more. Even I know it. Marty’s Better!

The future of coach Pete DeBoer and many of his players are up in the air (NJ.com)

I know I’ve said this a lot over the past few years but this is yet another very important offseason for the Devils.  While unlike prior seasons we don’t have to worry about re-signing the top FA’s on the market (though Jaromir Jagr is clearly priority #1 before July 1), there clearly have to be additions made to the roster one way or another, and perhaps shedding some dead weight as well.  Particularly on defense where Lou Lamoriello‘s constant hoarding of d-men the last two years have led to daily lineup problems for coach Pete DeBoer.  If anything deciding DeBoer’s own future is probably Lou’s first order of business at the moment since it’s been widely assumed – though not proven – his contract is up and multiple sources are already speculating that new Leafs president Brendan Shanahan is high on the Devils’ current coach.  Latest word last night from Elliotte Friedman on HNIC is that the Devils and DeBoer are working on a contract extension, but we’ll see whether that materalizes.

All I can say is if Shanny does get him well, buona fortuna!  I’ve personally had it with Pete’s constant ‘we battled’ meme every single night when we lose the majority of them.  I’m starting to get flashbacks of the Rich Kotite era with my Jets where ‘trying hard’ was enough.  And let’s face it with the way every player under 25 has gotten the shaft under this head coach – sans Jon Merrill and Adam Henrique (and the latter only got a real chance out of circumstance early in ’11-12) – Pete might be the wrong coach in the wrong place right now.  Especially with younger players like Adam Larsson, Eric Gelinas, Reid Boucher and Stefan Matteau that are going to have to be integrated into the lineup sooner or later.  There’s nothing that says you can’t win and develop at the same time…the ’98-00 Devils proved that.  For whatever ills then-coach Robbie Ftorek had, they were able to transition over to the next generation of players smoothly.  At some point as an organization though, we’ve started rushing kids before they were ready by and large (Matteau, Larsson and Jacob Josefson all played their first NHL game as teenagers) and then casting them off at the first side of trouble.  That has to change, whether it’s Pete or the next coach doing it.  Merrill was an example of doing it right in terms of development, he spent three years in college and a little time in the AHL before he came up…and voila, you don’t have to teach him anything, he’s ready.

Of course the youth isn’t our only worry…really the Devils have to address every position in one way or another, starting with the goaltending.  With Cory Schnieder set to be a UFA in 2015, the Devils are going to have to sign him to an extension sooner or later, or trade him if he won’t sign.  Losing huge assets for nothing because you won’t talk contract during the season is a Lou policy that has to stop.  This organization’s been devastated by the twin departures of Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk in consecutive offseasons, and though keeping Parise on a one-year deal proved to be the right decision at the time given the Devils’ 2012 run, we’ve been paying the price ever since.  It just cannot happen with Schnieder, especially since he’s become vital to keep (and we traded a top ten pick to get him, to boot) – certainly Cory’s W/L record wasn’t his fault given his 1.97 GAA and .921 save percentage.  Not when you score 84 goals in the 43 games he starts.

Of course Cory isn’t the only big-name goalie Lou has to make a decision on.  As much as Martin Brodeur‘s meant to the franchise over two decades, to put it bluntly now it’s time to cut the cord.  Give him the home finale this afternoon, let him and the fans say goodbye once and for all.  At this point, it’s what’s best for everyone.  Best for Cory going forward to finally be the undisputed #1 (his two best stretches of the season came when he was playing every day), best for Marty to find an opportunity to play or be told emphatically one doesn’t exist, and best for the organization.  Marty’s chafed publicly all year about not being able to play and is still in denial that he can be a top goalie again if he just got 65-70 games, in effect actually blaming the fact he wasn’t as good as Cory on that.  While you’ll never get any of the other players to admit it was a distraction, it had to be one.  Especially around the trade deadline when things came to a head, and after it when Marty made various comments about how Lou should have worked harder to kept Parise, and how the Devils have accepted mediocrity – among other things – as truthful as the latter might be.  Hopefully Marty’s public petulance (not to mention decreased quality of play) finally convinces Lou to let go of a player he thinks of as a surrogate son, and clearly has bent over backwards for at different times this season.  I’m not going to post a Marty retrospective today unlike most of the media, cause quite honestly I’m not convinced he’s gone as much as he says he is.  I’ll save that for when he actually does retire or move on, and the annoyances of this season have long passed.

On defense, hard choices have to be made there as well.  With Larsson and Gelinas now eligible for waivers, things may finally come to a head this offseason as far as Lou’s logjam on defense that he hasn’t been willing to alleviate for two years.  Assuming Larsson and Gelinas are both still here, they have to play.  Gelinas is too important offensively and the fact Larsson spent the majority of the year in the AHL is a disgrace.  Of course there’s the matter of signing both to new deals since they’re currently RFA’s.  Five other defensemen are under contract for next year – Andy Greene, Bryce Salvador, Anton Volchenkov, Peter Harrold and Jon Merrill (still on an ELC), though Greene, Salvador and Harrold are all going into the last year of their deals.  With Marek Zidlicky and Mark Fayne set to go UFA this summer, decisions will have to be made.  I wouldn’t mind keeping either guy but if you keep both, you’ll probably have to buy out either Volch or Sal, and trade one of the young d-men.  If you keep one, you can get away with just buying out Volch or captain Salvador – who between injuries and diminished play has become less a part of the team this year.  Perhaps Sal’s a big reason for the ‘culture of mediocrity’, certainly he’s a hard-working, well-respected player but he’s not the type of personality that’s going to make waves criticizing someone in the room.  While I’d prefer to buy out Sal over Volch, it’s obvious this staff isn’t as high on Volch given his diminished icetime…perhaps the only reason he’s still in the lineup is because he’s a good PK’er (not to mention his contract).

Up front lie the biggest issues with the team, both in terms of age and lack of speed, lack of offensive talent, and only one center that can win faceoffs.  In short, we pretty much need everything up front and it isn’t going to be easy to get considering we’re tied in to several long-term deals that run through at least the next two seasons from Travis Zajac and Patrik Elias to Adam Henrique, Ryane Clowe, Tuomo Ruutu and Danius Zubrus.  All six players are signed through at least 2015-16.  While the first four are essential for different reasons, you have to worry about Clowe, who’s now suffered two more concussions this year and quite frankly needs to give some serious thought to what continuing his career is going to do to the rest of his life.  Ruutu really petered out after a hot start and honestly we have too many players like him – over 30, grinder qualities with a lack of scoring talent despite Lou’s erroneous assertion he was a scorer based on his pre-2010 numbers.  You could say the same thing about Zubrus, who had a poor season though he picked it up down the stretch, but at least Zubrus you can deal with having given his intangibles – specifically his puck possession skills along the boards and the fact he can play any position up front.  Plus let’s be honest, a seven-year Devil in Zubrus deserves a bit more leeway from criticism than a guy that’s been here five minutes.

Aside from those six, team MVP Jagr (24-41-65, +15 in 81 games) is also essential to retain.  Honestly I was surprised how good Jagr was at 42 years old, and how much of a team leader he became in his one season.  I’ve said this before but I can see why Derek still follows him years after his last game as a Ranger.  While it sounds like Jagr’s amenable to returning despite the team missing the playoffs, you wonder how much a coaching change would affect that since Jagr’s endorsed Pete’s return – or more specifically endorsed the system.  Either way we know in Devil-land nobody’s ever really back until they say they’re back, no matter how promising things look.  Unlike Jagr though, it really isn’t essential to keep Michael Ryder or Damien Brunner around (both are signed through next year only).  Of the two I’d rather keep Brunner because of his speed and creativity, though it hasn’t translated into production most of the time.  Ryder’s been an even bigger dissapointment though, for a guy that’s been a 35+ goal scorer in the league his eighteen goals were unacceptable, especially given his long cold streak from January on, and the fact he really brings nothing else to the table when he’s not scoring.  With one year deals they’re easy to move if you can get assets and upgrade another way.

It’s around those issues that the Devils have to find some way – any way – to vastly improve their talent level in the top nine.  Whether it’s by trade, going after FA’s like Paul Stasny or Thomas Vanek, or promoting from within (of our forward prospects only Reid Boucher and Stefan Matteau are even close to ready, though neither stuck in their first call-ups – this year in the case of Boucher, last year in the case of Matteau).  Our entire fourth line is up for free agency too and sadly it seems as if CBGB has outlived their welcome as a line.  After a good year last year, Steve Bernier had a poor one this year (three goals and a -15 in 77 games).  Stephen Gionta, well everyone knows the deal with him – max effort guy who occasionally can hit someone and provide offense but also has severe limitations – sizewise and in the faceoff dot.  Plus he continually gets overused and overexposed under this head coach.  Ryan Carter is the one of the three I’d be okay with bringing back though he only put up ten points in sixty-one games (seven goals), at least he can play wing/center and bang guys, score some big goals.  Overall though it feels like it’s time for a different look and younger legs there – Bernier’s 29 and the other two are 30+.

Of course it would be nice if at least one or two of the new forwards can score a goal in the shootout as well…the less said about our 0-13 record in the shootout or our 4-45 shooting average the better.  What makes it baffling is guys like Elias and Clowe as well as both goaltenders HAVE had success in the shootout in the past.  Clearly at some point along the way this became a mental block, maybe even starting with the home opener where we went 0-6 against the Isles and it set a bad tone for the season.  After losing yet another shootout on Thursday in Ottawa, Schnieder vented some frustration on a lost season:

We win half the shootouts, we’re right in it. We score six more goals here or there, we win games we may have lost, but we’ve got to do something because it seems that after 80 games it’s been a pretty consistent theme of losing games that are winnable, and we’ve got to make some adjustments.

I’m not going to attribute our woes this season to the skills competition solely, that’s the easy way out.  Yeah we might have made the playoffs if we had just an average record in the shootout but honestly could you see this team beating Boston as presently constituted?  Or even Pittsburgh, now that they’re getting healthy?  Even Lou said it the other day, just making the playoffs is still mediocre.  There are fundamental problems with this team and they need to be addressed in a hurry.  Lou doesn’t want to rebuild, doesn’t want the word in his vocabulary but at a certain point soon this organization will have no choice.  Either you make serious changes now, or the whole house built on a faulty foundation’s going to crumble in on you.

With that, and the Devils’ season ending today I’ll probably take a vacation from writing here too during the playoffs, other than maybe a random comment here and there.  Since Derek’s Rangers are the only playoff team in the group, it’s his – and their – show now unless something Devil-related happens before the draft (like a DeBo extension or whatever).  However, I’m sure it’ll be busy enough in the summer to write then.

During last night’s penultimate game against the Islanders, broadcaster Chico Resch officially announced he was stepping away from the microphone after eighteen years – in part due to his wife’s request to be near her ailing sister in Minnesota.  This was something that was in the air for a while, given Ken Daneyko spotting in for second periods of home games and Chico citing longtime partner Doc Emrick‘s quote about turning 65 earlier this year (what Doc said about looking in the mirror when he stepped back from local broadcasting).  Still, getting the official word is kind of sad to be honest, to completely lose the second part of what was a legendary pairing for fifteen years.

Not only that though, but losing Chico is like losing a friend.  If you ever met him or even just observed him interacting with fans in any kind of setting, you know he was a genuinely good, fun person that enjoyed what he did.  As much as people make fun of him at times, he could be sharp with valid observations based on being around the NHL for nearly 50 years – as a player, coach and broadcaster.  I’ve always heard that if you talked with Chico away from the mike he wouldn’t pull punches if you asked him a question about the team or anything and I observed this very briefly at a season ticket holder function a few weeks back when he was talking with a handful of fans alone in the fire lounge and made a couple of comments about the age of the team, and other observations about the team’s future good and bad.  Another time from a distance, I observed him chatting up fans on the subway ride back from a Devils-Rangers game at MSG (he was going to Secaucus).  I didn’t actually talk with him myself either time, I was just content to observe Chico being the life of the room.  Two of my friends happened to be in the clubs last night instead of their normal 120 seats and did meet him, he was his usual gracious self and talked with them, posed for a picture.

Aside from his knowledge and upbeat nature, he was intentionally – and unintentionally – hilarious on the air.  The ‘Chico Eats’ segments like the one above were a classic staple of home intermissions for a couple of years as Chico not only sampled the palates in and around the Rock, but met people and shared his food with them (sometimes).  And of course his Chicoisms where he would inadvertantly make a goof on the air like his excited ‘he put that bread and butter on the toast!’ proclamation when Mattias Tedenby scored on a penalty shot a couple years back.  My favorite Chicoism goes back several years where he was talking with Doc about how John Madden was missing from the ice on a particular penalty kill and Doc just stayed quiet, let Chico bring it up a couple of times then when Chico said something like, ‘I don’t know if he broke a skate or what the problem is’, Doc finally jumped in, ‘The problem will be alleviated as Madden comes out of the box now’, and everyone had a good laugh about that.

At least we’ll have one last game to listen to Chico’s wit and wisdom tomorrow afternoon, and celebrate his career.  Tonight’s Hockey Night Live show will carry an interview with Chico talking about both his playing days and his broadcasting, then there’ll be a first intermission tribute on the broadcast tomorrow, along with a goodbye to the fans during the postgame show.  Aside from everyone’s personal connection with Chico, old-time fans feel an even deeper connection given how Chico was the face of the Devils franchise as a player in its early years after being traded from the Islanders to Colorado, then moving with the team to New Jersey where he remained upbeat despite being stuck on bad teams for years.  In that sense, Chico really is a member of the family considering he was an original Devil and then spent nearly two decades as a broadcaster.

We’re gonna miss you, buddy!