What was once seen as a possibility now seems to be a foregone conclusion: For the first time in his NHL career, Martin Brodeur will likely don another team's uniform next season.
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It had been reported that Brodeur was likely to test free agency and end up with another team come Opening Night in October, and now the Devils have seemed to move on from the franchise goalie, who has been a staple in the New Jersey crease throughout his entire 20-year NHL career.
The Devils have a No. 1 goaltender in Cory Schneider, who was acquired by the team in a trade during the 2013 NHL Draft and took a lot of Brodeur's playing time away in the 2013-14 campaign. The Devils then inked Scott Clemmensen, 37, as an insurance backup on the first day of NHL free agency Tuesday.
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"I don't think we had a choice," GM Lou Lamoriello told NorthJersey.com about moving on from Brodeur.
Brodeur, 42, seemed open to the possibility of returning to the Devils but was also very interested in weighing his options and said it was entirely possible that he could end up somewhere else. Now, it seems as though the Devils were the ones who shut the door on him the very first day of free agency.
"I don't want to get into any of that," Lamoriello said about shutting the door on the future Hall of Famer. "Just focus in on the New Jersey Devils right now."
Clemmensen, who was originally drafted by the Devils and won 32 games with the franchise in 2008-09, is an insurance plan to be the No. 2 behind Schneider if rookie goaltender Keith Kinkaid isn't ready to suit up this season.
Kinkaid, who turns 25 on Friday, will be in competition with Clemmensen for the backup role.
"Cory Schneider is the goalie and we have to have somebody who can give him the support at the right time to relieve him and we'll see who it is," Lamoriello said.
While Brodeur hasn't seriously considered a new team yet, it has been reported that the Pittsburgh Penguins and Toronto Maple Leafs were interested in signing him. Brodeur has hinted that the forthcoming season will be his last.
Brodeur had said last month in anticipation of becoming a free agent that he was intending to weigh all of his options.
"I'm going to give myself the opportunity to look at what's out there and see if there's something that's interesting to me," Brodeur told The Record last month. "It doesn't mean it's not going to be in New Jersey, but I'm going to look everywhere."
Brodeur backstopped the Devils to the Stanley Cup Final in 2012, but the team has failed to make the playoffs in the following two seasons as a wave of change has gone through the franchise.
The three-time Stanley Cup champion goaltender shared time with Schneider last season but played in 39 games and posted a 19-14-6 record, with a .901 save percentage and a 2.51 goals-against average.
Brodeur is the NHL's all-time leader in regular season wins (688), regular season shutouts (124) and playoff shutouts (24) and holds various NHL and Devils franchise marks.
In his career, Brodeur is 688-394-154 with a 2.24 goals-against average and a .912 save percentage, but when he adds onto those numbers next season, it will most likely be with a team other than the Devils.
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