As I've said on the HOH board, for basically his entire career my eye test told me that he simply wasn't at the level of guys like Hasek/Roy and that he was getting propped up in a big way by NJ's consistently elite system. But he was so incredibly durable (his biggest strength, incidentally) that it was difficult to prove that right or wrong when he was playing 70+ games every year.
Then in 08-09 he finally got hurt and a Scott Clemmensen/Kevin Weekes tandem took over and those two journeymen put up basically the same numbers that a Vezina-winning Brodeur put up in the previous two years.
And yeah, at that point it became impossible for me to rate him anywhere near the elite goalies of his era.
I talked about this argument in the 2nd post of this thread. I watched Peter Budaj put up basically the same numbers as Jonathan Quick, but my takeaway was never that this was proof that Quick was a byproduct of some system. I figured Budaj was a house of cards and Kings management made the same conclusion.
David Aebischer put up great numbers when he backing up / taking over initially for Patrick Roy. I don't think that detracts from Roy at all.
2018 Keith Kinkaid was kinda like Clemmensen 2.0 for us.
I mentioned this in a different thread but my memory from watching was that despite the save percentage, Kevin Weekes struggled that season which is what allowed Clemmensen to get the number of starts that he did.
Brodeur got hurt on November 1. Weekes was expected to carry the load after Brodeur got hurt.
Weekes
Starts 1-6: November 3 - December 13 - 2 wins, 4 losses, .897 sv%
Starts 7-11: January 10 - February 19 - 5 wins, 0 losses, .956 sv%
Weekes played great for those 5 starts, but I'd be remiss to point out the opponents: LAK (would pick #5), CBJ, ATL (would pick #4), NYI (would pick #1), TBL (would pick #2). Columbus was the only playoff team of the bunch and they were 21st in GF. They only entrusted Weekes to go against the dregs. Similarly, this is mostly the reason why Corey Schwab (.971) and Clemmensen (.952) had amazing save percentages in small sample sizes in 2003-04.
Most Devils fans were upset with Lou when Clemmensen got demoted when Brodeur returned in late February. Despite finishing the season with a .920 save percentage, Weekes would go unsigned as a free agent and announced his retirement in September 2009.