Brodeur has the record; who's dreaming of 50 wins?

	Martin Brodeur has raised the bar for goalie wins in a season. Len Redkoles/Getty Images
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The saying that records are made to be broken is certainly true. They serve as generational sign posts -- targets of goal-setting youngsters to strive for as they link the present with the past. With that always comes the debate of who is/was better. But to me, it is the debate that is important, not the answer or opinion.

Records falling and evoking names of greats from the past is what being a fan is all about. Kids developing a love of the game on their own terms need to have those milestone markers to unearth the history of the game.

In the best of circumstances, acknowledgment of those who came before and set the standards leads to respect and understanding. In the case of New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur -- who broke Bernie Parent's single-season mark on Thursday night with his 48th win this season -- the positive elements of the process and the class of the individuals came shining through.

Brodeur has long acknowledged wanting to surpass Parent's mark and Parent was very gracious in his praise of Brodeur, calling Brodeur the best goalie in the game. Brodeur was just as high in his praise, saying that he hopes anyone looking at the record reflects on Parent.

In a way, the two goalies are similar. Both are affable French Canadiens who backstopped their teams to Stanley Cups. Both have become icons at their position for their respective teams -- Parent the legend of those Philadelphia Flyers teams of the 1970s, and Brodeur the face of the Devils since the day he arrived in the early 1990s. Not surprisingly, both had workhorse seasons when setting the record -- Parent playing 73 of the Flyers' 78 games during the 1973-74 season, while Brodeur could match Grant Fuhr's mark of 79 games played set in 1995-96.

The seasons in which Parent and Brodeur accomplished their marks is at the center of those "who's better" debates in that as time moves on, the playing landscape changes. There are some who contend that because Brodeur's mark came in the shootout era when each game has a chance for a winning outcome while Parent's came when overtime was strictly a playoff phenomenon and shootouts were associated with the OK Corral, the mark is somehow tainted and requires an asterisk for further explanation and separate demarcation.

Parent, however, isn't one of those voices. And, yes, times change. Brodeur understands that shootouts are "on the goalie's side now", but that is part of it. The record is a number. It is what it is -- a tremendous accomplishment by a remarkable goaltender, just as it was when Parent won 47 in a shorter season without shootouts. And just as it was when Clint Benedict set the record for wins in a season with 19 in 1919-20, only to have Alex Connell of the old Ottawa Senators up the mark to 30 wins in 1926-27. Tiny Thompson of the Boston Bruins won 38 games in 1929-30 -- a number matched twice by Bill Durnan of the Montreal Canadiens.

It wasn't until the 1950-51 season that the NHL had a 40-game winner when Terry Sawchuk posted 44 victories in back-to-back seasons for the Detroit Red Wings. Parent and now Brodeur have extended that lineage.

Somewhere, though, there is a kid turning pages of a record book, reading the names, seeing the old photos, enjoying the journey of gaining an understanding of how the game has evolved and dreaming of being the first goaltender to win 50. And that is the most important thing of all.