FanHouse Bernie Parent

With the Devils 3-2 win over the Flyers tonight, goaltender Martin Brodeur set a new record for wins by a goaltender in a single season with 48.

As you can imagine, the mainstream media, New Jersey Devils, their fans, and the NHL itself, is going to play this up as the "world's bestest achievement".

Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils had a record-setting night against the worst team in the NHL.

Brodeur surpassed Bernie Parent, Philadelphia's stalwart Stanley Cup-winning goalie, for wins in a season with 48 and the Devils clinched the Atlantic Division title with a 3-2 win over the Flyers on Thursday night.

"I think with him being an icon as far as goalies for the Flyers, to go into Philly and do it here, I couldn't write it a lot better than that," Brodeur said.

"This is his year," said Parent, his retired No. 1 hanging from the rafters. "He's played fantastic hockey. It couldn't have happened to a more fantastic individual."

Parent sent a personal note that Brodeur said he would read at home.

What is on the note? "YOUR RECORD IS TAINTED" ??

Look, anyone with some semblance of individual thought knows that Brodeur's record is a sham. Parent, classy as he is, has a right, if he wishes, to be pissed off that he's lost his record thanks to the advent of the shootout.

With a 2-1 shootout win over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night, Martin Brodeur tied Bernie Parent's 23-year-old record single season wins record with 47.

It's somewhat fitting that Parent's record was tied with a shootout win because that's what all the fuss (whatever fuss there is) is about -- shootout wins. You see, back in Bernie Parent's day, when games were still tied at the end of a five-minute overtime period, they just ended; no skills competitions to decide a victor, just one big sister-kissing tie for each team and all the fans. Unimaginable, I know.

Nowadays, of course, ties are for baseball and every overtime hockey game has a winner and a bigger winner. And the biggest winners with this whole set-up are the goalies, who get an extra chance to win a game where their generational predecessors would have been saddled with a draw.

Which brings us to Martin Brodeur tying Bernie Parent's single season wins record. Brodeur has won a League-high 10 of those games in shootouts. Bernie Parent won, well, none of his games in shootouts, but did tie a dozen games that year -- games that would have gone to the shootout had they existed. It's a safe bet that Parent, that year's Vezina Trophy winner as the League's best goalie, would have won enough of those shootouts that we wouldn't even be talking about Brodeur closing in on his record right now, much less tying or breaking it.

So the question is, if Brodeur breaks Parent's record with a win in one of New Jersey's two remaining games, is the record legitimate or does it deserve the dreaded asterisk?