Daily News Online Extra: Brodeur’s last stand?

Throughout the playoffs, Daily News columnist Rich Hofmann will write an exclusive column only for philly.com readers, posted at midday each day.

NEWARK, N.J. -- After practice on Thursday, New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur was one of the first players talking. He had taken a shot on the back of his left leg during the practice, and people wanted to make sure he wasn't hurt. (He said he was fine.) Other reporters came by to take his temperature, then quickly began to work the rest of the room. Broduer sat there, peeling off his equipment, speaking quickly. One of the NHL's lions in winter, he has begun another playoff spring.

And he was saying, "That's the toughest part of the playoffs, between the games."

He knows people are whispering behind his back -- he's always been a very aware guy. He knows that his first name in the newspaper is no longer "Martin" or "Marty" -- it's "37-year-old." He knows that the two most recent big entries on his resume were a two-goals-in-a-blink disaster that turned a Game 7 win into a last-minute Game 7 loss last year in the playoffs against Carolina, and then his benching during the Olympic tournament after a rough game against the United States in the preliminary round.

Now he is here, playing in an arena where three Stanley Cup banners hang behind him. Even though he was good and could not be faulted in Game 1, the Flyers still beat the Devils on Wednesday night, 2-1.

Game 2 tonight is enormous, and Brodeur knows that, too. He has seen everything there is to see in hockey about 18 times, and he knows the dynamic. Deserved or not, it will all tumble into his lap if it goes bad tonight.

"Your experience, I think, kicks in on days like today," Brodeur said. "But when you jump on the ice, it's a hockey game. I don't care if you have a million games of experience or two games of experience, it's how you perform. Every day, you have to go out and try to perform as the best you can. But the emotion to get yourself ready for a game, I think that's where your experience kicks in a lot. You try to stay composed as much as you can and try to look at things a different way than maybe other people look.

"It's easy when you don't play the game, to look at a team or individuals and assess what they do. But as a player, you have to try to be honest with yourself and just go out there and try to get yourself ready to play."

The honest assessment is that the Devils were pretty good in the series opener, but they do need to get their power play going (0-5 in Game 1). The honest assessment of Brodeur is that there is no statistical evidence that he is slowing down at all. The stats over an 82-game season are revealing by definition, and they do not reveal any kind of physical decline.

Always tireless, Brodeur led the league with 77 games played, 45 wins and nine shutouts. His save percentage, .916, was two ticks better than his career average. When they changed the rules a few years ago and took away his ability to dig pucks out of the corner and serve them back out of the zone, the NHL was simply acknowledging his excellence. But other than that, he really does look the same as he did in the old days.

"He hasn't changed much," said his coach, Jacques Lemaire. "He hasn't changed much. He's the same person that loves the challenge, loves to be in big games, handles pressure well. He's got a good mind for the game.

"The only thing he's got is the age," he said. "The rest is pretty much the same."

Over on the other side, the Flyers' Simon Gagne has been shooting at Brodeur for his entire career. If he sees a hole in his old rival's game, he isn't revealing it.

"Any goalie, you have to shoot the puck on him and you have to put traffic on him," Gagne said. "Any goalie in the league, you put traffic on him, he doesn't like it. Every chance you have, you have to shoot the puck...but he's a goalie that can make a difference in a game. I've seen him do it before. I played with him on Team Canada, too, and I know what he can do. He's got that edge that you see on him sometimes ...

"He's got a different style. He might be the last goalie to play that way -- he's a stand-up goalie and he's good. I don't care if he's 37. He's still one of the best goalies in the league."

The presumptive Flyers' strategy is to throw a lot of pucks at him, a strategy they have yet to implement -- they had only 14 shots in Game 1. They need to turn up the heat. In the Flyers' locker room, they were all saying that. It makes sense. You want to make an older guy work, move his feet. If you are the Flyers, you want to probe and see if you can turn the whispers into shouts.

"In a playoff series, you have to try to put a doubt in the opposition's mind -- that they can't do anything to win," Brodeur said. "For us, (we will) try to get that. They feel really good. They're flying high. They've beaten us six out of seven times now, or whatever it is, this season. We've got to start building something.

"You win two in a row now and it's, 'Oh, maybe they got us.' That's what we're going to try to create here, put a doubt in their mind that it's not going to be an easy series."

So far, it is the Flyers who have created the first doubts. Brodeur, though, says he has none.

"All my career, I've been pretty good about assessing things and then going about it," he said. "It's kind of hard to explain. I go in, every series, the same way. I just play hockey. I don't pay attention to what's going on. I just know that the next day will be the most important day. It'll be 1-1 or it'll be 2-0. It's always like that.

"I try to take everything else out. Success or non-success, I never changed my demeanor. I try not to, anyway."
Partly because his teammates would be watching? Yes, Brodeur said, with a quick nod.

"It's important," he said. "I've played in the past with people like Claude Lemieux, Scott Stevens, big leaders. When you're a guy that everybody looks up to, there are certain guys, if they look like they're affected by little things, they look to see if I'm affected, too. That's not good. You want to be above everything.

"You just want to steamroll through good and bad. That's what the playoffs are all about -- it's all these peaks and valleys. You've just got to try not to fall over."

Now it is all very plain, to Martin Brodeur, to everyone. Tonight is the Flyers' chance to give him, and them, a great, toppling shove.