Martin Brodeur and Jaromir Jagr are two of the oldest players in the NHL and might be shipped out of Newark by Wednesday’s trade deadline, but they showed they still have some value to the Devils in a 6-1 rout of the Islanders Saturday.
Jagr became the seventh player in NHL history to score 700 goals and Brodeur stopped 18 shots in his first game since Jan. 26, when he was pulled after two periods when he allowed six goals in a 7-3 loss to the Rangers at Yankee Stadium.
Brodeur was pleased to still be with the team for Jagr’s historic day,
“I thought about it, like, ‘Wow, I’m here,’ ” Brodeur said. “Especially playing for the Devils, we didn’t get too many guys with these kinds of milestones.”
No team does. Jagr joined Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Brett Hull, Marcel Dionne, Phil Esposito and Mike Gartner in the 700 club, a feat even more impressive considering he chose to spend three seasons in the KHL and also lost time to three lockouts.
Asked if he thought he could catch Gretzky’s 894 goals, Jagr laughed.
“I’d have to play four more years to catch him,” he said.
In the meantime, Jagr will join Brodeur in wondering where he will be after the deadline. And like the goalie, Jagr knows he will have a say in any potential destination.
For Brodeur, there is a chance he may have played his final game for the Devils — something he admitted was on his mind.
“A little bit,” Brodeur said. “It’s like anything. There’s only two games before the trade deadline and we’ll see what that’s going to bring. If I do get traded, this’ll probably be my last game. If I don’t, hopefully there will be more.”
Brodeur said he would consider a trade if it were to the right team.
“It definitely depends where it would be if I do accept it,” Brodeur said. “And I’m not there yet. I know it’s running out of time a little bit, but I’m taking my time with this.”
Having lost his starting job to Cory Schneider, Brodeur has been left in an unaccustomed backup role.
“I play hockey to play hockey games, not to sit on the bench, so it’s been a hard month,” Brodeur said. But I had a chance to play and do well, so it was fun.”
And he added a starting job wasn’t a requirement for him to agree to a move.
“Nope, not necessarily,” Brodeur said. “It would be just a position to get more ice time. I feel really good and … to see how I was playing and how in-control I was today, that I still got a lot left in me. And if I need to play somewhere else next year, I need to make some decisions.”
So do the Devils, who host the Sharks on Sunday and Red Wings on Tuesday.
Like Brodeur, Jagr expects to be notified if the Devils seriously consider moving him.
“If any team would try to trade for me, they would probably ask me first if I want to go there,” said Jagr, who has a team-high 19 goals and has 61 goals against the Isles, more than against any other team. “I don’t have a contract [for next season]. I’m 42 years old. What if I decided to go home? No one is going to give draft picks to a player who they don’t know [is coming back]. … So I’m probably going to know.”