Backing up Brodeur

As told to: Joe Pack

Corey Schwab

(Corey Schwab was drafted by the New Jersey Devils in 1990 [200th overall], the same year as Martin Brodeur [20th overall]. He played in eight NHL seasons, three with the Devils. Schwab was a part of the 2003 team that won the Stanley Cup, appearing in the Final in Game 6.)

I met Marty when he didn’t speak any English. I developed a relationship with him early, playing a year with him in the minors on the Utica Devils.

When he first came in to the American Hockey League, he was strictly a butterfly goalie. He went down on most shots, if not all of them, and he was able to develop the patience to hold his feet. The credit there has to go to Jacques Caron, Marty’s goalie coach throughout most of his career. You never knew what Marty was going to do to stop the puck. His instincts were second to none. I think towards the end of his career he tried to adapt to how goaltending was changing, things like recovery and staying down in tight around the net.

Utica and New Jersey played the same style from the AHL to the NHL. In 1995, after the lockout, Utica won the Calder Cup and New Jersey won the Stanley Cup. I got called up as a black ace during that playoff run and saw what the Devils went through to win. They expected to win.

***

It’s the last game of the 2002-03 season and we’re tied for the lowest goals against in the league with Philadelphia. It didn’t mean anything in the standings but a few goals could have cost us the William Jennings trophy (I hadn’t played enough games to qualify to share the award.) Marty had the choice to play or rest for the playoffs. He told me to not worry and just play. We ended up tying Buffalo 2-2 while the Flyers allowed two against as well. Marty wound up sharing the Jennings with Roman Cechmanek and Robert Esche.

For Marty, it was about winning Stanley Cups. He went out and won the Stanley Cup that year.

***

The home team was winning every game (of the 2003 Stanley Cup Final) and there was a lot of travel back and forth. I remember sitting at the end of the bench as I watched the fifth goal go in to make it 5-2 Mighty Ducks. Pat Burns looked down at me and I told him I was ready if needed. He turned and walked the other way and probably thought about it for a minute. If Marty had a game that didn’t meet expectations, you knew that next game he was going to be dynamite.

Pat looked back to me and said, “get in there.” It was a chance to rest Marty before game seven in New Jersey.

***

At the beginning of the 2001-02 season, I didn’t have a contract going in to training camp. Two days before camp, Mike Penny of the Leafs invited me to Toronto and I was on the plane the next day. I later got the opportunity to fill in for an injured Curtis Joseph after the Olympics and play a bunch of games in a row — it was a comforting feeling and was one of the highlights of my career in the regular season.

It was different than being a backup: you know what you want to work on and carry over from the previous game. As a backup to Marty in New Jersey, I went through long stretches of time without playing and not having particular things in my game to work on.

***

At the old Montreal Forum, the backup goalie used to sit just behind the bench. The spectators would walk through the bench to get to their front-row seats. During any stoppage in play, I would have to get up from my stool so fans could walk past me. I’d be trying to stay focused on the game and was constantly being asked to get out of the way.

Most benches aren’t that comfortable, the backup always gets squeezed out.

Johan Hedberg

(Johan Hedberg played 12 seasons in the NHL, the last three with New Jersey. He was a part of the team’s run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2012 and near the end of his tenure, both he and Brodeur were in their 40’s.)

We had a lot of things in common with our age and having kids and so on. I was pleasantly surprised to see how down to earth and humble he is. They were fun years.

We would talk a lot about players’ tendencies, he was very open about sharing ideas. We grew up in the same era — even though I think maybe I evolved my game a little bit more than he did.

In a way, we had an advantage on some of the young guys who came through New Jersey because they’d never seen goalies play like we did with pokechecks and standing up for shots. I wouldn’t characterize him as a stand-up goaltender though his game was a lot of skating and using patience. You could say he played old school but most of the guys who’ve been successful have used a mix of styles. Within his technique, he had to be very athletic.

The modern guys are more technical. If a young goaltender was to look at Brodeur, he would look at how he used his angles and how much room he took up in the net. But they would do best to look at his puckhandling which was second to none. I’ve played with some other good puck handlers like Marty Turco, who was phenomenal, but Brodeur never missed. He never threw the puck away. I’ve never seen anyone be that good and consistent with it. If I had played with Marty earlier in my career, I probably would have been more creative with the puck.

If he had chosen another sport to play — golf, football — he would have been good no matter what. Well, he wouldn’t have won any marathon runs. But playing 70 games a year, he had to be in good shape and whatever he did worked for him.

I wasn’t at the point in my career where I could change my game but I learned from playing with Marty. He had the ability to just kill the puck when it came around the boards behind the net. The puck usually has a lot of spin on it, making it hard for the goaltender to settle it down. He could stop it, get his chest up and see who was around. While it’s harder to pick up new things when you’re older, I still wanted to try some new things.

He had some injuries the years we played together, and we made the Final in 2012, but the Devils teams back in the day were more solid and played a strong team game. The game had become faster since.

During the 2012 run, we were very good at shutting teams down and forcing them to dump the puck which played right into Marty’s hands. He killed so many forechecks. We played Philly after that crazy series with Pittsburgh and really shut them down.

Richard Shulmistra

(Richard Shulmistra was drafted by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1992 supplemental draft, an extra round of picks for non-playoff teams choosing from players in their early- to mid-20’s. Richard played one game for the New Jersey Devils in 1997-98 and attended training camps and practices with the club.)

I signed with the Devils as a free agent after my second year. I was backing up Peter Sidorkiewicz in Albany.

The season before that, there was a little 5-on-5 ruckus after a game and I went over to hold somebody’s arms so they wouldn’t get the snot kicked out of them. So Peter Sidorkiewicz came down to my side of the ice and I had to take the mask off and throw a few knuckles. I’m 25-26 years old at the time and I was thinking someone like Peter, who’s 34-35, is old - I remember pretending to be him in street hockey. I was like, “Man, I hate to have to do this, but if it’s you or me, it’s gonna be you!”

There were some hurt feelings. After the game, I go to poke my head in their trainer’s room and there’s nobody in there except Sidorkiewicz sitting in the cold tub, staring at me with a scowl. I asked him to say hi to the trainer for me and walked out.

The next year, I signed with Albany and when I arrived at the hotel they were staying at while on the road, the coach gave me my room number. I knocked on the door and Sidorkiewicz opened it up in his underwear. We were roommates.

He didn’t say a word to me for the first month.

***

I got called up to the Devils several times when Mike Dunham or Corey Schwab would get hurt. Marty was always great at training camp or when you came up. You leave conversations with him thinking, “What a great guy.”

Goaltending was changing as was the coaching. Previously it would be former goalies teaching you how they played. The science behind goaltending was a part of the 1990’s. If you compared Patrick Roy with his first game (in 1984-85) and then 10 years later and 10 years after that, you’d see the change.

When I joined the Devils and started to work with Jacques Caron, I was learning how to skate use your pads differently. You had to learn new habits and question things like which leg to get up on. Marty had been doing it and some of it was second nature to him. If I was having a hard time, he’d come and help.

I asked him about that, why he was such a good teammate, showing me things that motivate me to get better. He said that it challenged him to be better and if I wanted his job, bring it on, let’s go.

Sometimes goalies view their relationships with each other as adversarial and here was Marty just sharing ideas with me.

(Editor’s Note: Incidentally, the 14 or so movies — mentioned in above video — Brodeur might have seen in theatres at that team could have been any of Bad Boys, The Basketball Diaries, Friday, Die Hard With a Vengeance, Braveheart, Johnny Mnemonic or Batman Forever, among others.)

So Mike got hurt and Peter got called up but then Marty got sick so I got called up. I join the team on the road in Florida. I think it was a noon game the following day and I was expecting to back up. I’m enjoying the team breakfast and the goalie coach Jacques tells me I’m starting my first game in the NHL.

A fun and exciting breakfast turned into being nervous that I’d spill my cereal on my lap as I brought the spoon to my mouth.

Peter Sidorkiewicz was there and it made it feel like a regular game day routine in Albany. We went through the other team’s lineup and he warned me about Esa Tikkanen. He said he could really shoot the puck but that it was deceptive. He told me Tikkanen could score on me from the red line and I should be careful.

Third period, we’re in a 1-1 hockey game. Tikkanen comes over the far blue line and I thought about how Sid said he would shoot from anywhere. I took a step outside of my crease and wouldn’t you know it, he took a slap shot from the red line. All of a sudden the puck is rising and coming in way faster than I was used to, and he was going top glove. I had to fight the thing off. It was so fast that I’m sure if I wasn’t that extra step out of the crease that he would have scored.

Late in the game, the puck’s in their crease and John Vanbiesbrouck jumps on it but we poke it in for the winner. Then Kerry Fraser called it off saying he had intended to blow his whistle.

In overtime we got a phantom penalty call when Tikkanen got tangled up with our centreman and they scored on the power play and we lost 2-1.

But it was a good day.