Larry Brooks

Larry Brooks

NHL

It’s sad to witness Brodeur struggle

Watching Martin Brodeur yield a boatload of soft goals through his first four games has been like watching Derek Jeter hit a succession of soft ground balls through the first half of the 2011 season.

It has been tough on the eyes, difficult to absorb and more difficult to process, because the mind’s eye freezes Brodeur in time as it did with Jeter.

Too old? Too slow? Professionally mortal?

Can’t be.

But maybe so.

There is no joy in watching one of the all-time great ones fight the puck. No joy in recognizing the Devils’ all-time player has reached a passage in his career in which he likely will yield his No. 1 spot to a younger man.

No joy in watching one of the great athletes who has ever represented a metropolitan area team look less than ordinary and, at least for the moment, be as much part of the problem as the solution.

Of course, the sample size is tiny. Of course, after Jeter hit .260 with an on-base percentage. of .324 through the first half of 2011, the Yankees captain hit .331 with an on-base percentage of .384 the rest of the way.

Jeter wasn’t done then, wasn’t done with a league-leading 216 hits and .316 batting average as a 38-year-old the following season.

He turned back time, is what Jeter did, a neat trick Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello believes in his heart of hearts the 41-year-old Brodeur is capable of pulling off as well.

“Marty Brodeur is one of a kind,” Lamoriello told Slap Shots on Saturday morning. “He knows who he is and how he feels. He knows his game.

“The way he deals with things and handles adversity sets him apart. The question about whether there is concern about Marty has been asked a lot the last 10 years and more frequently in recent years. My opinion right now is that it is not the case.

“I’ve dealt with him after losses his entire career. This is the person who was pulled from Game 6 of the finals and then had a shutout in Game 7,” said Lamoriello, referring to the 2003 series against the Ducks, which the Devils won to capture their third Stanley Cup in a nine-year span.

“History has a way of telling us who this person is.”

But history is just that. Time slows down for all great athletes, but it stops for no man. The series against Anaheim was, after all, more than a decade ago.

There was the improbably glorious ride to the 2012 Cup final against the Kings that included the gratifying and unexpected conference finals ouster of the Rangers, through which Brodeur did turn back the clock, but the data has been steadily tracking against him.

His five-on-five save percentage has been below average the past three seasons, ranking 19th among No. 1 goaltenders last year, 27th two years ago and 25th in 2010-11. There are still breathtaking saves unique to his own unique style, but they are fewer and farther between.

And this year, well, he has been beaten semi-regularly by shots he would previously have turned away without fuss or muss. There were two bad ones, maybe three, in Ottawa on Thursday, a game in which he was also drilled by shots on both shoulders and around the right elbow.

“They were hitting my shoulders or going in,” Brodeur said on Saturday. “They all hurt.”

It hurts to see Brodeur, for so long the personification of the Battle of the Hudson, sit as the backup against the Rangers as he did on Saturday, accepting the assignment by saying, “Definitely it’s a little strange but my mindset is a lot different than it was in the past … if this were the middle of my career, it would be different.”

It is different, all right, all of it is, for one of the great ones of all time and for all of us who have witnessed Brodeur at the top of the mountain for almost two decades.

In this business, you don’t root for teams. You root for the best story. You root for the best guys. You root for Lamoriello to be correct.

You root for a renaissance for Brodeur.

The NHLPA, we’re told, fought hard initially against the 10-game sentence handed to serial headhunter Patrick Kaleta of the Sabres for his gratuitous headshot against Jack Johnson of the Blue Jackets.

It’s a stance from the union that has far less than unanimous support from the rank-and-file. The sense is while everyone deserves a defense, there is no defense for Kaleta, who is appealing the length of the ban with PA support.

“I’m speechless,” one unhappy dues-paying fellow told Slap Shots. “There are maybe three or four guys in the league who try and hurt people.

“Our message as players should be that it’s unacceptable. We shouldn’t leave that to the league.”
One more time, and this time more cogently. All-time No. 22s in professional sports: 1. Mike Bossy, Islanders; 2. Elgin Baylor, Lakers; 3. Emmitt Smith, Cowboys; 4. Dave DeBusschere, Knicks; 5. Jim Palmer, Orioles. Asterisk: Roger Clemens…

How about organization man Craig Berube, the new coach of the Flyers, kicking the fired Peter Laviolette when he already was out of the door by invoking the charge the team wasn’t in good physical condition when he took over from his predecessor?

That must be part of Mr. Snider’s Flyers Culture.

Finally, we know it’s now called the Metropolitan Division, but does that mean just about everyone in it has to play like the Mets?