If this was it, sendoff’s fitting for Devils’ legend Brodeur

In a career that is overstuffed with great moments, there will be this one — a muggy spring Sunday afternoon in Newark, and Martin Brodeur standing at the center of the Prudential Center ice with his stick raised, smiling, the bitter and the sweet to be tasted throughout the arena, throughout the past two decades and into the next one.

What had just happened was Brodeur backstopped the Devils to a 3-2 win in the regular-season finale over a team wearing the Bruins sweater but far from the actual President Trophy-winning Bruins, as seven regulars stayed home to rest and get ready for the playoffs. Yet it was career win No. 688 for Brodeur, a record that is unlikely to ever be matched, just like his 124 shutouts.

And yet those numbers solidify a legacy, and one that he’s not sure he’s ready to leave alone. Instead, Brodeur will celebrate his 42nd birthday in three weeks with an uncertain future laid out before him, as the Devils missed the playoffs for the second straight season, and on July 1, he will be an unrestricted free agent.

That is, if by then he hasn’t announced his retirement.

There seems to be little doubt Brodeur wants to keep playing, but he needs the right situation. He said he wants to play at least 30 games, he wants it to be in a place where the weather is nice, and he wants it to be where the team will compete for a Stanley Cup.

Got it?

Which makes the situation just as it was at the trade deadline, when general manager Lou Lamoriello tried to move him but any reasonable deal was made impossible because of Brodeur’s contractually allowed restrictions. Brodeur said he had not spoken to Lamoriello about the possibility of signing a deal here for next season to back up, and though he would not rule it out, he knows what happened this year in splitting games with Cory Schneider cannot, and will not, work.

“I think the position the coaching staff was in, having two goalies No. 1, it just doesn’t work,” Brodeur said after he made 16 saves on 18 shots. “It didn’t work in Vancouver, and it didn’t work too good here. We didn’t make the playoffs. So I think it’s important that when you have one good goalie, you have to give him the bulk of the work and Schneids will get that for now.”

Yes, Schneider will and should get the bulk of the starts next season. Lamoriello sent off the No. 9-overall pick in the 2013 draft to the aforementioned Canucks last June in a smart, calculated look toward the future, one seeming even more sage as Brodeur came into the finale with the unsightly save percentage of .901.

Which doesn’t make it any easier to see him leave.

The 16,592 people that made Sunday a sellout were there because they wanted to say “Thank You,” and did. Throughout the final five minutes — and even after Brodeur gave up a power-play goal to Brad Marchard with 16 seconds remaining, the final shot he would face — the common chants rained down in unison.

All the memories were then easy to dust off, dating back to that first of three Stanley Cups, in 1995, when he somehow got his stick to the ice in front of the goal line in Game 3 of the finals against the Red Wings to deny Kris Draper en route to a series sweep. Hoisting that first Cup would be Brodeur’s favorite moment of his career, “a dream come true,” he called it.

There are so many more like that, and now there is this one, him looking up at the New Jersey fans for what very well could be the last time as their goaltender.

It has been a disappointing year for the best ever, but on this day, the most prolific winner in hockey’s history had one more for the record books. It was a win that meant nothing in the standings, but turned out to be far from meaningless.