Denis Brodeur, left with camera in hand, chats with a Martin Brodeur fan at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Saturday night. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

The question is no longer if, but when Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils will become the winningest goaltender in NHL history.

Brodeur, 36, equalled Hall of Famer Patrick Roy's record of 551 wins with a 3-1 victory at Montreal last Saturday night, and will aim to set the new standard when the Devils host the Chicago Blackhawks at the Prudential Center on Tuesday night (7 p.m. ET).

"I will just put myself in a class of my own — for now," Brodeur told reporters Monday. "When people look at stats now, there are two names at 551.

"There will be one name at 552 when I get there. After that, it is 553 and I will just try to raise the bar as high as I can."

"It is all about winning," Brodeur continued. "I will say it again, 'It is not just about the goaltender, it is about the team.'

"The team, in 15 years we have won that many games and more, with other guys chipping in along the way. It is a lot of wins."

Brodeur acknowledged the advent of overtime and shootouts hastened his assault on the record set by Roy, who played his entire career in the pre-shootout era — when teams still settled for ties.

But that hasn't cheapened Brodeur's sense of accomplishment.

"You have to appreciate what you have just accomplished or what you are about to accomplish," he said. "That is part of doing some great things."

'I had butterflies'

Few people appreciate it more than Denis Brodeur, Martin's father and former team photographer for the Montreal Canadiens.

Brodeur never pictured his son would become the winningest netminder in NHL history, but there he was Saturday at the Bell Centre, proudly capturing Martin's 551st win on film.

"I had butterflies," he said Monday in an interview with Hockey Night In Canada Radio.

Asked how many photographs he took, Brodeur replied: "About 400. Now with the digital, you can shoot as much as you want to."

"I was involved with taking all the pictures with Montreal, and he [Martin] used to come with me and set up my lighting," Brodeur recalled. "But I never told him nothing about goaltending.

"One day, when he was a peewee, I showed him how to stop pucks behind the net and stop the passes out front. That was about all."

Paternal tips notwithstanding, Denis Brodeur credited a hockey school hosted by Hall of Famer Vladislav Tretiak with refining Martin's game during his teens.

"He didn't win any awards nowhere, he didn't go to any famous Quebec tournaments, he didn't make any all-star teams and he was a small boy," Brodeur said. "All of a sudden, when he went to midget, when he was 14, he did four years with Tretiak [and] I think that was a pretty good hockey school."

'They might have a chance'

Now Martin Brodeur is schooling NHL forwards on the finer points of goaltending.

Brodeur has posted at least 37 wins per season since 1996-97, and sees no reason why he cannot maintain that pace over the final three years of his contract.

That said, he knows what it will take for someone to break his record.

"Guys will have to play a lot," Brodeur figured. "Depending on whether goalies can have that workload and organizations will leave goalies alone for 15 years and say, 'You go on the ice whenever you want,' they might have a chance to be close to it."

Brodeur, sidelined 50 games earlier this season because of a torn biceps near his left elbow, is also three shutouts shy of the NHL record of 103 held by the late Terry Sawchuk.

With files from the Canadian Press