A poll was recently conducted to find out if Martin Brodeur is the best goalie of all time, according to the fans

When the time comes to have a discussion about who is the best player of all time in any sport, there is obviously room for debate.

Whether it's in basketball between LeBron James or Michael Jordan, in tennis between Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic and of course in hockey between Gretzky, Lemieux, Howe and so on.

But let's talk about goalies. In the history of the NHL, an impressive number of masked men have been in front of the net and let's say that finding the best of all time is not an easy task.

Many goalies have excelled in different eras and to compare, for example, a Jacques Plante to a Patrick Roy, might seem unfair to some experts because both have evolved in a completely different context.


But let's talk about numbers only. In this field, there is one name that tops the list of most NHL records and I'm talking about a certain Martin Brodeur.

He leads in career wins, shutouts as well as games played and as reported by Jeremy Pearman of Habsolumentfan.com, a poll was recently conducted to see if people considered Brodeur to be the best goaltender of all time.

And let's just say the results are pretty surprising.

According to the poll conducted by advanced stats popularizer JFresh, only 19.7% of respondents said they believed the Quebec goalie to be the best of all time.

Still, pretty incredible. Could it be that the majority of respondents are too young to have seen Brodeur play?

It's possible, but we're not talking about a goalie who played in the 1960s. However, 57.6% believe that Brodeur is among the top three goalies of all time while 86.8% say he is in the top 5.

Despite Brodeur saving the day in the last two categories, I have to admit I'm a little surprised by this poll but it does show one thing, there have been an impressive number of great goalies in NHL history and there will continue to be as the years go by.

What do you think? Who do you think is the greatest of them all?