Optically, goals resulting from bouncing pucks are terrible. Bouncing pucks may look easy to stop, but they can have a way of dipping under a glove or changing direction last second.
Jonathan Bernier experienced this first-hand this week:
While Ekman-Larsson even scored this goal shorthanded, it still could have been worse for Bernier. At least the stakes were relatively low. Both teams are likely to miss the playoffs, meaning this goal will not have a lot of impact on anything outside of this game.
Which brings us to the goal Tommy Salo let in at the Salt Lake City Olympics:
With that goal, Belarus eliminated the heavily-favourited Swedes. This remains one of the biggest upsets in international hockey history and it is all because a long shot bounced off Salo's mask.
While teammate Mats Sundin asked the public not to scapegoat Salo, as the the rest of the team was also at fault for the loss, Salo was vilified for this play.
Goalies need to have an extreme level of mental toughness to succeed. It takes a special personality to get embarrassed in front of a sellout out crowd and a national TV audience, forget about it, and get right back into the game.
Martin Brodeur, who officially retired last week, is in the conversation for best goaltender of all time. He has won three Stanley Cups, two Olympic gold medals and is a four-time Vezina winner as the NHL's top goalie.
As this play shows, everybody makes mistakes:
While bad luck can make a goalie look very foolish, sometimes a lucky bounce can be glorious for a goaltender. Damien Rhodes became part of an elite group of NHL goalies who have scored a goal, and he never even had to shoot the puck. After the Ottawa Senators took a penalty and New Jersey pulled their goalie (Brodeur again) for an extra attacker, a New Jersey player tried to pass the puck back to a defenseman. The pass went all the way down the ice and into New Jersey's net. Rhodes received credit for the goal as the last player to touch the puck.
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