Martin Brodeur calls hockey 'too dangerous of a game': Report

Since joining the St. Louis Blues as a senior advisor last week, newly retired goaltender Martin Brodeur has been giving the team reports looking down from a scouting booth. But now the NHL veteran wants everyone to know about the ever-evolving game from the perspective of 20 years in front of the net too.

Brodeur spoke with Sportsnet to discuss what he likes and what he’d like to change about the game the future Hall of Famer played for almost his entire life.

The 42-year-old former New Jersey Devils legend pointed to the speed of the game and the resulting hits as something that he dislikes.

"It’s too tough of a game, too dangerous of a game. I think it goes… all the speed that they wanted to bring into the game, it kind of makes it up on those tough hits and it’s hard for the players to police themselves. First of all because fighting is going away from the game,” said Brodeur. “You have a lot of guys that are taking liberties and some guys they don’t, but because the game is so fast, they don’t have time to react to a lot of things.

"The dangerous part of the game, the accidents, some of the head injuries needs to get cleaned out."

Brodeur didn’t know exactly how the league needs to go about changing the game, but did have a couple of suggestions.

“The trapezoid has to go. I think the goalies have to help their players a little bit more, but a lot of the hits come because there’s no interference,” Brodeur said. “Put in the interference on the table for the players to use to help each other.

“In the neutral zone I understand the guy skating 100 miles an hour with the puck nobody should touch him, but when you see your guys getting lined up, you should be able to hook that guy a little bit to make him realize ‘hey, you got to stop buddy, you can’t hit him’. But if he does that, the guy gets a penalty. Interference needs to get back in the game.”

Brodeur was in Philadelphia on Saturday night scouting the Flyers and Leafs as part of his new role with St. Louis and spoke with NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman about his new vantage point on top of the ice.

“I think it’s a lot easier to judge people from up here,” Brodeur said. “That’s where I’m trying to find the way of doing it, the right way of doing it, to give the best input I can knowing that two weeks ago, three weeks ago I was the one down there.

“Hockey’s hockey. Right here I think it exposes it a little bit, but it’s all productive.”