The Garden can undergo all sorts of transformations, but no matter what, then, now and seemingly for always, there is Martin Brodeur leading the Devils onto the ice from the Zamboni corner entrance at 33rd and Eighth.
There’s been more than 20 years of it, from the time as a 19-year-old Brodeur started Game 5 of the 1992 first round, to the epochal 1994 conference final, to his 23-game unbeaten streak against the Blueshirts beginning in 1997, to the stunning Battle of the Hudson victory two years ago … to Tuesday night’s 3-2 victory over the Rangers at 41 years and 190 days of age.
“Twenty years as a goaltender; it’s amazing and will never be done again,” Jaromir Jagr told The Post. “Think of it, 20 years as a No. 1; that kind of thing doesn’t happen in sports.
“Who could do that? Maybe [Peyton] Manning as a quarterback. But that’s it,” No. 68 said. “For me, if I’m not the No. 1 right wing, I still have three other chances to be on the team, but Marty as No. 1 for 20 years? No one else can do that and no one else will do that.”
Look, Cory Schneider is very much in the mix to at least share the top dog designation in Newark. The Devils didn’t send the ninth-overall pick in the Entry Draft to Vancouver for the 27-year-old so that he would, a) sit idly as a backup in the manner of, say, Corey Schwab; and, b) therefore bolt for free agency in 2015.
And the Devils sure aren’t going to pile a 50-start workload on Brodeur that inevitably would bring diminishing returns.
But it is still Brodeur, whose start last night was the 63rd of his career on Broadway (including playoff matches), on whose shoulders the franchise rises and falls. Still, Brodeur can bedevil the Blueshirts as he did on Tuesday in outplaying Henrik Lundqvist.
“It’s always fun for me to play here, but I have left a little of the rivalry feeling behind,” the NHL’s all-time leader in victories and shutouts told The Post. “The rivalry to me was so much about the characters on the other side that I was playing against for so long, like [Mike] Richter and [Brian] Leetch and those guys.
“It was us against them, ’94 maybe was the peak, and then what we did two years ago [in the Eastern finals] was big for me. They have a good team and lots of good young players, but it’s a different era of the game, too.”
Brodeur entered the match off consecutive shutouts, the eighth time in his career he had fashioned back-to-back whitewashes. Think about that. At 41, he accomplished something he’d only done seven times previously. It’s tantamount to Derek Jeter next season doing something for the eighth time ever.
There was no shutout on Wednesday, Brodeur’s streak ending at 191:21 when Marc Staal scored from the left circle at 6:55 of the second to tie the match 1-1. It was immediately following that goal Brodeur was at his best, turning away a handful of golden chances from in front that included point-blank saves on Chris Kreider and Ryan Callahan.
The Rangers never mounted sustained pressure against Brodeur, but they did generate 35 shots on goal that tied for the most surrendered this season by the Devils, who have gone 5-2-2 in their last nine matches and have allowed a sum of 15 goals in doing so.
Jagr and Brodeur were each selected in the first round of the 1990 Entry Draft, the scorer fifth overall and the goalie 20th. Brodeur has worn one NHL team’s uniform; Jagr is somehow on his seventh.
“When I played all those years against him, I respected him as a hockey player for what he did,” said the career 686-goal scorer who has been his team’s best player this season. “Now that I have the chance to play with him, I respect him even more because of the type of person he is.
“I want to do even more for him because he is such a good guy.”
Jagr, it turns out, was prescient on Tuesday, predicting a 3-2 victory for Brodeur before it started.
“I was like, ‘What, no shutout?’” Brodeur, he of the 0.80 GAA and .964 save percentage over his last five starts, said, laughing.
“No; no shutout,” Jagr said. “I don’t want to say that I’m smart, but I am. I just know things.
“I also know we’re going to win the Stanley Cup, but don’t tell anybody.”