Martin Brodeur

Maybe some home cooking was all the New Jersey Devils needed.

That plus a goalie switch, two shorthanded goals and three shootout scores.

Returning to the Prudential Center in Newark after a four-game road trip in which they went 1-3-0, the Devils rebounded from a 3-0 deficit to top the Ottawa Senators, 5-4, in a shootout Thursday night. 

Martin Brodeur’s career as the New Jersey Devils franchise netminder is drawing to a close, and the last few seasons have seen him struggle with injury and something else he’s not used to: being outplayed by his backup goaltender.

The season has just barely begun and the New Jersey Devils are already starting to make the beginning half of last season a distant memory. It has been beaten to death, the disappointment and gruesome play that plagued the Devils early in the 2010-2011 season so there is no sense in rehashing painful recollections of a season past sans playoff competition.

There may not be a sport that is more closely associated with its country than Canada and hockey. 

Whether it's the national team or club teams, Canadians are always proud of their stick wielding, puck handling heroes.

For the most part, Canadian hockey fans think of all hockey players fondly, unless of course they play on a rival team, but they hold their own kin most closely in their hearts.

Canada has had the greatest crop of hockey players to come out of one country. That fact then raises the  question - who are the greatest of the great?

A lot has changed for the NHL since the infamous lockout wiped out the 2004-2005 NHL season. After all the dust settled, it seemed like an entirely new NHL was born.

Throughout the history of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, there have been heroes who have scored the big goals and brought their team the ultimate glory of hockey's holy grail.

Then there are the puck stoppers who stood 200 feet down the ice who made the big saves when their teams needed it and brought their team the Stanley Cup by shutting down the opponent's most deadly snipers.

It was a very unlikely scenario for the New Jersey Devils to make it into the playoffs this year after the enormous hole they had dug for themselves. 

Well, the playoff outlook for the New Jersey Devils is looking bleak to say the least at this point of the season.  Even though they are not mathematically eliminated, they are essentially hanging on by a thread.  The Devils must win their last nine games and would still need a little help from other teams to ensure the Sabres, Hurricanes, Thrashers or

The Devils played at the Continental Airlines Arena (originally known as Brendan J. Byrne Arena) in East Rutherford, NJ from their inception in 1982 through the 2006-07 season before moving to Newark, NJ in the plush new Prudential Center.  There were tons of memories in the old building, ranging from the obvious (three Stanley Cup championships and four Stanley Cup Final appearances) to the not so obvious (334 club - Jan 22, 1987. 

Its a debate that has raged for years and will continue to rage long after this column.

Who are the greatest hockey players in the history of the great sport of hockey?

With this list, I tried to be a fair as possible in considering every aspect I possibly could. 

Taking into account everything I could think of and not necessarily in this order: era they played, stamina, how injuries effected total numbers, of course statistics and the competition level they faced.