Is Sergei Bobrovsky The Next Martin Brodeur?

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After an awful 6-15-2 start, the Columbus Blue Jackets are in the midst of an 8-0-1 stretch that has the team right back in the thick of the playoff race.  But what makes this recent run impressive, is who they are beating.  In this stretch, the Blue Jackets have beaten Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Chicago.  In looking back at those 4 games, the Jackets gave up a total of 6 goals.  Consider also that 3 of those 4 games went to the shootout.  So how exactly are the Blue Jackets winning games against this tough part of the schedule?  There is a simple one word answer for this.  The answer is Bobrovsky!

This got me to thinking, how good has Bobrovsky been not only this season, but in his career?  Most fans will remember his time in Philadelphia, which didn’t end well.  But a closer look reveals that Bobrovsky’s overall career to this point has been excellent.  During his time in Columbus, Bobrovsky has been known to be a 2nd half goaltender.  His stats from March and April are off the charts, and a main reason why Columbus is starting to fight for playoff spots on a more consistent basis.  This season though, he is starting to play world class right now.  He has had to be great.  How else can you explain a team on a 9-game point streak with all the injuries they are going through?  In addition, how can a team win and be out shot by almost 100 shots (!) during their winning streak?  The answer is a world class goaltender.  Bobrovsky is certainly that.

Is Bobrovsky The Next Martin Brodeur?

When you think of world class goaltenders, Martin Brodeur is thought of as one of the best of all time.  He has more wins than anybody in the history of the game.  He also has multiple Stanley Cups and Vezina Trophies.  Could Sergei Bobrovsky even be compared to Martin Brodeur in any capacity?  At first thought, it seems silly to compare.  However, a closer look reveals a much different picture.

Sergei Bobrovsky has 193 career decisions to this point.  I went back and looked at the 1st 193 decisions for both Bobrovsky and Brodeur to see how they compare.  The results are pretty telling.

Granted, in Brodeur’s day, the NHL still utilized ties.  With that in mind, the records are very similar, with Bobrovsky even having a slight edge.  Bobrovsky also owns a better save percentage to this point, while Brodeur owns a better goals against average.  Bobrovsky has also won a Vezina trophy.  Brodeur didn’t win his 1st Vezina until he was 30 years old.

bobrovsky brodeur
Sergei Bobrovsky has numbers that are similar or better than Brodeur at same stage of their careers. (Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports)

 

What Does This Mean?

In looking back at Brodeur’s career, it was at about this point that his career really took off.  It was his 5th season when he started to blossom into being one of the NHL elite.  A case can be made that Bobrovsky is trending in that same direction.  The metrics and advanced stats say that the Blue Jackets should be near the bottom of the standings.  But, the reality is that they’re fighting for a playoff spot in spite of what those numbers say.  Elite goaltenders can single handily offset those numbers.  As this season is going on, Bobrovsky is making the case that he should be considered for the Vezina Trophy again.  If he were to win the Vezina trophy again this season, that would be his 2nd one.  He is only 26 years old.  Bobrovsky still has a bunch of things to prove before we could ever say he is comparable to Martin Brodeur, but these early numbers do suggest that there is a chance it could happen.  Bobrovsky will certainly be given a chance to prove himself once the playoffs get here.  Stay tuned.  By the time it is all said and done, we could be looking at Bobrovsky as one of the greatest of all time.

6 thoughts on “Is Sergei Bobrovsky The Next Martin Brodeur?”

  2. What would be interesting to know is which other goalies have looked comparable at 193 games, and how did they pan out?

  3. So brodeur has less starts and more wins with nine ties that could be wins in the same time frame, not sure of the comparison.

      • Like Chris said, hard to compare when Brodeur didn’t have the benefit of the SO to pump up win totals.

        Also with it being a different era, it’s hard to compare save %. The average save % of goalies now is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH higher than it was 20 years ago. The changes in style and equipment along with the fact that goalies tend to be much larger than they were in the past has inflated save % quite significantly.

        The better comparison would be to see who had the save % that was further above the league average at the time.

        I’ll make this comparison here to show that Bobrovsky is no Brodeur:

        In their first two seasons both Brodeur and Bobrovsky had nearly identical save %. Not counting the 4 games Brodeur played in 91-92, he appeared in 87 games from 93-95 and have a save % of.9095. Bobrovsky appeared in 83 games and had a save % of .9094.

        While these are basically identical numbers, Marty’s save % was significantly higher than the average save % of an NHL goalie at the time which was .898*, while Bobrovsky’s was lower than the average of .912.

        If you look at Bobrovsky’s entire career of 203 games from 2010-2015, he has a career save % of .919. The average save % of an NHL goalie during this time is .913, so Bobrovsky’s save % was .006 above the average.

        I can’t get numbers on Brodeur’s first 203 games, but I can get the season’s total numbers and he played 235 over his first 4+ seasons from 1991-1997. He had an average save % of .915 at that point. The average save % of an NHL goalie over that time was ~.898, so Brodeur’s save % was .017 above the average over that time.

        So with my analysis that more clearly and fairly compares the two goalies across different eras, it becomes obvious that it’s absolutely crazy to claim that Bobrovsky is nearly as good as Brodeur was early in his career. Bobrovsky is good, but his career save % doesn’t even put him in the top tier of NHL goalies like Tuukka Rask and Cory Schneider that have save %’s of .920+ in recent years.

        *Since I didn’t have total SA and SV for each goalie in the NHL in the years I looked at, I just added the average save % of NHL goalies for the years in question then divided them by 1000xN(number of years in question). (e.g. 5 year span=5000)

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