Last season at this time there was a significant debate as to which goaltender, New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur or Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo, was deserving of winning the Vezina trophy as the NHL’s top goaltender for 2006-07.

Both were neck-and-neck in the single season wins column, as well as for save percentage and goals-against average.

In the end Brodeur would win out, establishing a new single season record for victories by a goaltender with 48 and edging out Luongo in the other important statistical categories to win the Vezina.

This season, Brodeur’s chief rival for the Vezina is San Jose’s Evgeni Nabokov, who currently has two more victories than Brodeur (42 to 40) and could break Brodeur’s single-season record of 48 this season.

However, Nabokov’s current GAA of 2.15 ranks behind Brodeur’s 2.13, placing the latter with the fourth-best GAA  of all NHL goalies this season thus far.
 
Nabokov currently has the edge in shutouts over Brodeur (6 to 4) but the latter’s save percentage of .922 (tying him with Luongo for third best in the league) is considerably better than Nabokov’s .910.

Brodeur’s critics like to claim that he benefits from having a stronger defensive team in front of him and that he doesn’t see as many shots as other NHL goalies, but this season he’s faced the fourth-most shots thus far (1870 and counting) and made the fourth-most saves thus far (1724).

Those figures are considerably more than Nabokov’s 1667 and 1517 respectively, which is more noteworthy when one considers Nabokov has played two more games, plus Brodeur’s given up four less goals thus far (146) than Nabokov (150).

When the Devils signed Kevin Weeks as Brodeur’s backup last summer it was expected that Brodeur would see a little less playing time this season in hopes of giving him some much-needed rest for the playoffs.

Thus far, the veteran Devils netminder has had little rest, playing in 68 games, the fourth-highest total in the league behind Nabokov’s league-leading 70 games. 

Brodeur’s 40th victory this season marked the seventh time in his career that he’s won forty or more games in a season, the only goalie in NHL history to achieve that mark. He also notched his 96th career shutout, the second-highest career total of any goaltender, putting him only 7 back of the all-time mark of 103 set by the late, great Terry Sawchuk, a mark once considered unattainable.

He’s also moving closer toward eclipsing Patrick Roy’s record for regular season victories (551), currently sitting with 534, a record that Brodeur should break early next season.

None of this will have any factor on the Vezina race for this season, and Nabokov will remain a serious challenger over the final few games of this season but in the end, I expect Brodeur to win his second straight Vezina trophy and the fourth of his illustrious career.