Brodeur's entire career has been played in a defensive system, though not always the infamous "neutral zone trap". Jacques Lemaire implemented the "trap" after he was brought into New Jersey for the first time, and no one can argue against the fact that much of Brodeur's career has been under the umbrella of that stifling style of neutral zone defense.
The trap is a system built around limiting breakouts and neutral zone passes and in turn, the high-quality scoring chances created from them. Now, I have no complaints with New Jersey playing that system for so long. The bottom line is that it worked, and that is the only thing that matters in terms of judging a "system", IMO. That said, a system must be taken into account when grading a goaltender. Brodeur, quite simply, was heavily protected by a tight defensive system that limited high-quality scoring chances and just to make matters even more interesting, involved two Hall of Fame defensemen for over a decade.
Patrick Roy played 9 seasons in the high-scoring era, as compared to Brodeur's one. His Montreal teams were generally solid defensively and let's not forget that Pat Burns played a huge role in Roy's 3 Vezina Trophies. It shows you the influence of a defensively-minded head coach on a goaltender. That said, Roy's career stats are hurt a lot by his first 8 seasons in the league, all of which came before Brodeur became an every-day NHL player, all of which that came in the high-scoring era. The truth is that Roy never enjoyed the defense cores and systems that Brodeur did. Actually, Roy's Colorado teams until the arrival of Rob Blake and Ray Bourque, were as close to "run-and-gun" teams as we saw in the dead puck era. They were all offense, no defense, and a lot of Patrick Roy. I mean, Sandis Ozolinsh was in his prime and was one of their top defensemen! That's a lot of scoring chances for and even more scoring chances against.
Okay, enough about comparing systems and scoring chances. The reason why Roy is almost universally (outside of New Jersey) considered a greater goaltender is because he makes Brodeur, a fantastic playoff performer in his own right, look like Roman Turek come playoff-time. It's a major exaggeration, yes, I know, but the point remains that Roy is the greatest playoff goaltender in history and, in my eyes, possibly the greatest "clutch" performer, at any position, ever. I remember a recent quote from Guy Carbonneau about what Roy said during the intermission before OT in Game 2 of the 93 Finals. It went something like "Patrick stood up in the room before the OT started and told us not to worry because 'they will not score'."
Roy simply had an aura about him that teams simply could not solve in the playoffs. He got into their heads. I'll never forget what he said about the Sandstrom wink. From the SI Archives.
Martin Brodeur is not the greatest goaltender ever because of many reasons. One of them happens to be that Patrick Roy, who I consider second behind Hasek and right along Jacques Plante, whipped him on the biggest stage on earth. When Brodeur's Devils had the Avalanche on the rocks, Roy, as he had so many times before, simply refused to give up a goal because he simply believed he was too great a goaltender to give one up. And in so many instances, he was right.
41-17 career playoff OT record. 7-0 career Stanley Cup Finals OT record. Won a Conn Smythe Trophy in each of the three decades he played in. How exactly is Brodeur better than Roy? He, like so many other French-Canadian goalies, grew up idolizing #33, and many thought that the 2001 Cup Finals would be the moment Brodeur took Roy's playoff mantle. It actually looked possible after Game 5, but in Games 6 and 7, Roy proved why he was Patrick Roy, and nobody else ever will be.
