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Devils’ Brodeur to have surgery, out up to four months

On the verge of becoming the NHL’s most successful goaltender, Martin Brodeur will be sidelined until at least February after tearing a distal biceps in his left elbow last weekend.

The 36-year-old Brodeur, a four-time Vezina Trophy winner, will undergo surgery today.

“It’s shocking because you expect my knee is going to go or my groin or my thumb, something I use as a goalie,” Brodeur said on Tuesday. “I didn’t expect my biceps could be a big factor in an injury. It was a freak accident. That’s why I am shocked about the injury. That’s not something I expected to hurt.”

The biceps attaches to the big bone (proximal radius) in the forearm at the elbow joint.

Brodeur, the 15-year veteran who has led the New Jersey Devils to three Stanley Cups, was injured against Atlanta on Saturday, making a glove save on a shot that was going wide of the net.

“This is not a career-ending injury,” Devils president and general manager Lou Lamoriello said. “This is a bump in the road. [He’ll have] a total recovery, 100 percent, and with this type of surgery there is no doubt about — and I have total confidence that he will be back in a short period of time.”

Brodeur said it will take two months before he can start moving the elbow again, and then he would begin rehabilitation.

“Then it depends on how it responds,” said Brodeur, who had never had a major injury in his career in which he has played in at least 67 games in every NHL season since 1995-1996.

Brodeur has won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goaltender four times, including last season when he posted a 44-27 record and a 2.17 goals-against average.

His seven seasons with 40 or more wins are an NHL record, and his 2.20 career goals-against average is the lowest in the NHL’s modern era.

He set a single-season record for wins with 48 in 2006-07, breaking Bernie Parent’s old mark of 47.

Brodeur has 544 career wins, eight shy of breaking Patrick Roy’s NHL record of 551. Brodeur is five shutouts from tying Terry Sawchuk’s NHL record of 103.
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