Goaltender Martin Brodeur and his New Jersey Devils' teammates have come together to shut out a lot of teams during Brodeur's 16 seasons with the club.
Last night at Mellon Arena was, in one way, just another game where Brodeur victimized an opponent and rejected everything thrown at him.
In another way, his shutout last night was unlike any of the others in his career that preceded it.
Brodeur broke a record that had been in place for 40 years and may not ever be broken again, stopping 35 shots last night in their 4-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was Brodeur's 104th career shutout, breaking goaltender Terry Sawchuk's previous record of 103 and lifting New Jersey to first place in the Atlantic Division and NHL with 53 points.
There wasn't much to write home about for the Penguins in this one. New Jersey got an early lead and bedeviled the Pens the rest of the way, adding 3 goals in the second period and allowing Brodeur to cruise to the record.
While the Pens' tossed 35 pucks at Brodeur last night, they didn't really challenge him. Their best scoring opportunity came with about 90 seconds left in the game when Sidney Crosby hit the post. Otherwise, the Devils' neutral zone trap bottled them up all night long.
Brodeur's conterpart at the other end of the ice, Pens' netminder Marc-Andre Fleury, didn't fare nearly as well, being pulled just over halfway through the game after letting up 4 goals on 16 shots.
Fleury stumbling in a big game was a surprise, and even more so since he had been on quite a roll lately. In his last 10, he was 8-1-1 with a 1.80 GAA.
This was the third time in 3 tries that New Jersey beat the Penguins with relative ease this year, and all 3 games have been at Mellon Arena. Add the prior two 4-1 victories to last night's 4-0 win, and the Devils have outscored the Penguins 12-2 this season so far.
Maybe Pittsburgh will fare better on the road against these guys?
Whatever it is, the Penguins better figure it out, because if the Penguins and Devils run neck-and-neck all season, head-to-head matchups could make the difference in settling tiebreakers at the end of the regular season.
As things stand now, the Penguins would actually be EIGHT points up on New Jersey had they won their 3 games with the Devils instead of losing them all.
The Penguins next game is Wednesday, again at home, against the Ottawa Senators.
NOTES:
Penguins' center Jordan Staal took a puck in the honker in the second period and was in obvious pain as he left a trail of blood on the ice. As expected for a hockey player, he returned to the game for the third period with a full face shield and quite a bit of stitches for his trouble.
While no formal word has been announced, it appears that the knee injury sustained by defenseman Mark Eaton in Saturday night's 2-1 shootout win over the Buffalo Sabres isn't going to be a long term thing, but maybe more a matter of 2 weeks.
What? Did you think I'd give you any other timetable?
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