Martin Brodeur reached 552 wins in just his 987th game. Roy needed 1,029 games to reach 551. When looking at those numbers it seems like a large margin, but you need to factor in today's NHL. In Roy's day, if a regular season game was tied after 60 minutes of regulation play, and after an added 5 minutes of overtime, it ended in a tie. There wasn't a shootout to force a win like there is today. With 23 of his 552 wins coming as a result of the shootout, these 'wins' would have been listed as a tie before 2005. With Roy retiring in 2003, he didn't have the luxury of these coin flip shootout wins. With the new NHL rule changes, you'll start to see more records fall that are tough to compare side by side.Overall, I'm not a big fan of the Goaltender Wins statistic. Hockey is a team sport, and regardless of elite players in the league, games are won as a team, and lost as a team. If New Jersey wins a game 7-6, and Brodeur allows 6 goals on 30 shots while still recording a win... is that impressive??
Now I don't want to take anything away from Martin Brodeur. He'll be a first ballot hall of fame inductee, and as I mentioned before can easily be considered one of the top 10 goaltenders of all time while boasting a winning record against every NHL team with the exception of 2. (Vancouver is one of them, and the other is... the Detroit Red Wings.) I simply feel that the 552 wins with shootouts compared to the 551 without shootouts are like comparing apples and oranges.
If we are keeping things even, Marty would be at 529 wins to Roy's 551 with 3 years remaining on his current contract it's only a matter of time before he surpasses Patrick's mark legitimately.
But the NHL doesn't share my views, so I'll be the bigger man and offer congratulations on your 552* wins.
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