MY LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Seventeen years ago, a beloved coach gifted me a book.
Zen in the Art of Archery, a philosopher’s memoir from the 1940s, documents Eugen Herrigel’s experience of Buddhism in Japan. He accesses Zen principles through the medium of a bow and arrow—tracking the path to enlightenment through his dramas on the shooting line. The text was far too dense for a kid to decipher; the latest SpaceX launch plan might have been more accessible. I ferried the gift around in my bow case for a while, and later, I used it as a coaster. It was the type of book you kept on your coffee table as a projection of who you wished you were—ironic, given the egoless practice of Zen Buddhism.
But in 2016, I was headed to the Olympics as a reporter and digging for in-flight entertainment. Boarding the red-eye to Rio de Janeiro, I began to leaf through the text that had followed me since I was a child. The lessons, though filtered through the prism of an esoteric sport, were shockingly relatable. I now see hints of them in the way that Michael Jordan played, or Phil Jackson coached, or Anatoli Tarasov thought.
But I see them most profoundly in goaltenders—which is, perhaps, why they fascinate.
When I first set out to survey the “least favorite goals” of successful goalies, the purpose was not to write a burn book of their nightmares—rather, it was to consider their reactions. The ability to divorce yourself from a mistake that is marked with flashing lights and the refrain of “Chelsea Dagger” dances on the perimeter of enlightenment in my book. The simultaneous will to forget a blockbuster save that could result in thousands of fans nabbing free Dunkin’ Donuts, or a drill immortalizing your name in silver, seems even more noble.
“You know already that you should not grieve over bad shots; learn now not to rejoice over the good ones,” the Zen Master instructed Herrigel.“You must free yourself from the buffetings of pleasure and pain, and learn to rise above them in easy equanimity, to rejoice as though not you but another had shot well. This, too, you must practice unceasingly—you cannot conceive how important it is.”
Dwayne Roloson recounted the time that a fan showed him a photograph of one of his best saves. He could barely recall the moment until the evidence was presented—an exact embodiment of the realization above.
Throughout these months of phone calls, I sometimes found myself pleading with the likes of Nikolai Khabibulin and Gabby Graves-Wake. But HOW did you forget that mistake? HOW did you move on and play again? The answers were not always prescriptive, but I began to realize a number of trends laced through their stories—from a commitment to the present moment to the profundity of an apology.
These considerations may seem obvious at first, but as the archer often realized in the face of his Master’s recommendations, we ignore the wisdom ‘hidden’ in plain sight. Or worse yet, we visualize our failures with an obsessive clarity that we rarely assign to our victories.
“Do you know why you cannot wait for the shot and why you get out of breath before it has come?” The Master asked. “The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You do not wait for fulfillment, but brace yourself for failure.”
Presence of mind is not freely given—in fact, it is less of a gift and more of a war chest, the spoil of the bloodiest of all battles: vanquishment of your ego. In Mike Richter’s own words, “You work your whole life for that.” Legendary basketball coach Phil Jackson makes a wonderful case for staging this war in his memoir Eleven Rings, which reads more like a religious text than a locker room tell-all.
“Most of us spend the bulk of our time caught up in thoughts of the past or the future—which can be dangerous if your job is winning basketball games,” Jackson wrote, with hockey as an easy substitute. “Basketball takes place at such a lightning pace that it’s easy to make mistakes and get obsessed with what just happened or what might happen next, which distracts you from the only thing that really matters—this very moment.”
The soul of success, he summarizes, is a “surrendering to what is.”
The thirteen goaltenders I spoke with below have had to overcome their own destruction—from broken sternums to lost championships to tours of the minors—and rise again from the ashes of headlines. Not a single person blamed a porous defense, and more than one apologized. Four won Stanley Cups in seasons following their most frustrating goals, and most were grateful, in the end, for the lesson. When all else fails, one jetted off to Cancún.
I hope their stories inspire you, as they did me, to stumble back into the race for whatever you are playing for—tangible, intangible, on-ice or far from it.
P.S.— Even though only the Lord saved more, Bernie Parent has let in a goal. But surely, no more than one.
MY LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Alex Cavallini | It was right there, and we were so capable of winning.
Bernie Parent | We lost that game 1-0. That will stay with me forever.
Dusty Imoo | The coach conveniently never played me in Seattle again that year.
Dwayne Roloson | As far back as ten or eleven years old, I learned that no shot was easy.
Gabby Graves-Wake | I was like, "I am so sorry I let that happen. I failed you all.”
Grant Fuhr | It got me my ten games in the minors.
Jamie McLennan | I couldn't sleep, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move my arms.
Kevin Weekes | He faked the dump in, like a hard around, and I bit on the fake.
Martin Brodeur | I think that even if I show up to Madison Square Garden right now, someone is going to yell his name at me.
Mike Richter | We ended up losing that game in OT, and then went on to lose the series.
Nikolai Khabibulin | After the game…you probably understand where all of the media went.
Noora Räty | That game ended our season, and we were one of the favorites to win it all.
Steve Cash | But the one thing that I was told when I first got on the sled was to watch out for the rainbows that go over your head.
ALEX CAVALLINI’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Olympic Gold Medalist
Five-Time World Champion
Wisconsin v. Minnesota - National Championship Game (2012). This was the first goal of the game, and we ended up losing. It was against Amanda Kessel. It was my sophomore year, and she came in from the corner. I knew exactly what she was doing—she did the move, and she still scored on me five-hole. It was so frustrating because I would never let in that type of goal. For her to get it and for [Minnesota] to wind up winning, it was just hard losing to them. That goal got their momentum going, and I tore my MCL after the third goal. It was a penalty shot and I tweaked it when they got the penalty, someone fell into me. I re-tore it and then had to take a penalty shot. I let in one more after that.
[Kessel] is one of my best friends. We weren’t close then because we hadn’t played on the National Team together yet. I don’t know if I’ve actually ever talked to her about it—that’s kindof funny. We’re besties now and both in New York City. It’s funny that it was her. I think it was more memorable because it was Amanda Kessel who scored!
I was frustrated with it, and then I let it go. Did what I could after that. I was so upset to lose a National Championship—it was right there, and we were so capable of winning. I didn’t feel like I had my best performance.
THE LESSON
You just try to build from it and take another run. We never wound up winning another National Championship. That was kind of hard to process—we were such a good team, and we had such a good season. To lose that way was pretty tough.
The lesson, for me, was more on the mental side—I knew what she was going to do, and I moved too soon. For me, it was letting the puck come to me and learning from that. Not over-thinking and reading-reacting instead of predicting what’s going to happen. Back to top.
BERNIE PARENT’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Two-Time Stanley Cup Champion
Two-Time Conn Smythe Trophy Winner
The best way to answer this is—I don’t have any! [Laughs] No. I remember when I was playing for Toronto, it was 1971, the game we played in Montreal. At the time, they had Ken Dryden in goal. The score was 0-0 with about 12 seconds to go in the game, how about that? We had a face-off in our zone—I’ll never forget this—on the right side, and Montreal won the face-off and scored with about five seconds to go in the game. We lost that game 1-0. That will stay with me forever.
I was very, very disappointed because you win and you lose as a team. With Toronto and Montreal, it was always difficult because they had great teams. You play hard, but I was always one of those guys who would rather focus on the positive than the negative. In a game like this, you look back at the saves you made and the way the team played and keep it on the positive side. You replay what happened, the last ten seconds, then you make the adjustments and hope that it doesn’t happen again.
When you are a goaltender in the National Hockey League, you belong to a special club. To keep Montreal without a goal for most of the game was a big accomplishment. That’s what you focus on.
THE LESSON
Pay attention when there’s only ten seconds left in a game! You learn every time something like this happens. Until the sixtieth minute is over—there is always a chance you could win, and always a chance you could lose. You have to play the full sixty.
I am a firm believer that you either have a positive feeling or a negative feeling, and it’s the law of attraction. If you focus on that goal—especially for a while, just that [bad] goal—then you have to be careful. You have to learn from it, but you have to let it go.
I always tell people to have a vision and a passion. Of course the passion, if they’re hockey players, is to win the Stanley Cup. If you keep that passion and you’re positive, it’s a law of attraction. You attract beautiful things. Back to top.
DUSTY IMOO’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Four-Time JIHL Champion
Three-Time All Japan Cup Champion
I let in one in juniors, my first year in the Western Hockey League. I was playing for the New Westminster Bruins, and we were in Seattle. Back then, Seattle played in this box. Maybe 8,000 people, but they were right on top of you. The fans were absolutely nuts—that’s where they had that stick-swinging incident in the stands. It was pretty intimidating for a sixteen-year-old in net. We were winning 6-1 or something and the game was almost over. I had relaxed enough because the fans knew that they were losing. I let up my guard a little bit—or, quite a bit!—and they shot the puck from the other end of the ice. It went in the air and I lost sight of it. When it came down, it hopped over my stick and went through my legs into the net. That crowd was absolutely relentless—I’ll never forget that feeling. It was brutal. That one shook me for a while and the coach conveniently never played me in Seattle again that year.
The next one, I think it was my last year in Seibu Tetsudo. I played on two teams in Japan—I played for Seibu for nine years, and then I played for Oji [based in Hokkaido] for two years. When I played for Seibu in Tokyo, we won four championships and became a really good team. My last year, I knew I was going to be changing teams. I played with these guys for forever, and we were like a family. It was an important game and a guy came over the blue line…you know, I’ve probably let in worse goals. But a goal that I thought I should have had, it went over my glove. I usually could catch that puck. We were leading 2-1, but it seemed very deflating. We lost that game and I felt personally responsible. It knocked us out of the championship in my last game with them. We had done so much together, and I always believed that we would win that final hurrah. When I look back at it, that wasn’t the goal that lost it. But I still felt like that.
THE LESSON
What I think you learn from those specific goals is that once there’s too many of them, and you care so much about every single one, you realize that you have to let them go. You get used to forgetting quickly. If you didn’t, that could ruin a goalie.
I remember learning early that if I went to bed thinking about those goals, it was just going to be the death of me. I wouldn’t be able to continue and to be the goalie that I want to be. It wasn’t like an epiphany, or ‘one goal, one night’ I woke up. It was an accumulation over time of figuring it out, very much like life in general and the problems we face. Jack Campbell is my perfect example. If you carry this kind of shit with you, it’s crippling. You have to learn to let go of these things. You can learn from the goals that you let in, but you have to be able to put it on the shelf really fast, or else you can’t play the position.
On your own, it can be quite difficult to be honest. Hopefully you have somebody like myself or a spouse or friend that cares enough to listen. I was able to do that with my guys—if someone listens and you know that they believe it’s not such a big deal, that is usually all it takes. Then you can work on forgetting on your own. But you can turn it into a big problem really fast—your mind is a crazy thing. It sounds really simple or easy, but it’s not. A lot of guys have lists that they write down, and they do all of these things. Those can help, but sometimes it’s really about being able to talk to somebody. Back to top.
DWAYNE ROLOSON’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
World Champion
Roger Crozier Award Winner
I think they all bother me, to be honest with you. As far back as ten or eleven years old, I learned that no shot was easy. You can call Rob Blake on the follow-up! It was a minor team in Leamington, Ontario that we were playing against. Every year, we would do a friendly weekend with them. I was in Simcoe at the time and we were about two hours apart. A guy shot it from the blue line and I went to dive on it. Next thing you know, it’s in the net—and I don’t even know if we won or lost the game. It was a little wrist shot from the blue line and it went underneath me.
I lost sleep over it. It was a friendship game, so there wasn’t anything that came from it [laughs] except the ridicule from my teammates. Our coach at the time had coached me from when I started, and he knew he could come up and start joking around with me. It’s one of those things that I never forgot, and some of my close teammates will still make a little joke about it.
THE LESSON
From that point on, any time the other team had the puck by their blue line, I was ready for a shot. I was prepared for something to happen because I was caught off guard. It wasn’t a big game, but it was a teaching point for me—any shot, it doesn’t matter, you can’t take it lightly. Even if it’s from outside the blue line, you’ve seen goalies have highlight reel goals-against for the wrong reasons, bouncing pucks and things like that go by them. From that point on, I always made sure that if there was a bouncing puck, it wouldn’t elude me. That was not a big game situation, but something that always stuck with me and that I’ve always used to be ready.
Working with guys at the NHL-level now, I always say—goalies have the best amnesia. You’ve got to forget. It’s almost a rule that I live by. I don’t remember big saves on purpose because I don’t want to get too high or too low on certain things. I try to give them tools for how to reset. I used a tool called “parking”—it’s pretty much as simple as parking a car at the shopping center and going inside. You lock your car, and you walk away from it. You can come back to it later. It’s that simple, but it’s learning how to be able to use that in an in-game situation. Realistically once a goal goes in, it’s another 15-20 seconds until the puck is dropped again. If you’re still thinking about that bad goal, that next shot is probably going in.
It’s not the ones that you haven’t stopped or the ones that you have stopped—it’s the ones that you’ve got to stop later on that you have to focus on. Being able to do that mental switch and focus on the task at hand and go back to it later is the key. The best goalies in the world have that attribute. It’s mental toughness. Back to top.
GABBY GRAVES-WAKE’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
U.S. Sled Hockey World Cup Champion
Retired Marine Corps Sergeant
I think every goal that you let in is a frustrating one. The ones that are the most frustrating are the simplest goals. The ones that are low and slow on the ice, that I should be able to stop quickly. Or the ones that are coming out from afar just in the air, and I can track it all the way to the net, but for whatever reason, I didn't track it to my glove or my blocker. Those sort of goals for me are the most frustrating, and that's because in those moments, I know that I'm not in the right headspace.
In the last sled hockey tournament I was playing in with my club right before the coronavirus stuff took off here in the US, we were playing a team pretty competitive with us. It was probably the slowest goal that could come toward me from in the air. I saw it and I had a million seconds to react to it, but I just watched it go in the net—like in slow motion. I was watching the game instead of playing the game. I looked over at my coach and I was like, “I am so sorry I let that happen. I failed you all.”
I think a lot of goalies might have had moments like that, because being a goalie is a head game. You have those moments where you need to come up big because it's a breakaway or that sudden death period, or even a shootout, and you just feel that pressure. When I let a goal in because I'm in my head too much and not in the moment, my reaction time is slower. I think those moments are the most frustrating.
THE LESSON
What’s my coping strategy? I train. The minute I know where a new weakness is for a shot, I find every opportunity I have to train. So if backdoor is my weakness, maybe my team's defense is just not where it needs to be for whatever reason and my backdoor is left unguarded all the time. I have a two-on-one coming toward me and they're able to make that quick pass and get into my backdoor. I'm going to make sure that's not my weakness anymore.
I'll hit the ice with my goalie coach and he'll shoot pucks towards my backdoor, or we'll set up two-on-ones. My goal is to just be aware that it’s a possibility, and then try and push as hard as I can to block it or dive as hard as I can to block that shot so that they don't have that opportunity to exploit that weakness. I get obsessive that way. How can I train to be prepared for those goals so that it's a natural reaction? I obsess until I get it right.
My coach always says that as a goalie, you have to have the gift of short-term memory. So when you let in a goal, you have to forget it. Flush it down the toilet and forget it. Pretend like that scoreboard still says 0-0. I try to stay out of my head, but the key word is try, because it doesn't always happen. Staying out of my head is the biggest objective at that point. I try to learn from my mistakes and be better the next time. If I'm not, I try to apologize to my teammates as soon as I get the opportunity, because I know that as a goalie, we're the last line of defense. They need us to come up big in those moments. Back to top.
GRANT FUHR’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Five-Time Stanley Cup Champion
Vezina Trophy Winner
The first one, I missed from center ice. I think I had a twenty-some game unbeaten streak in my rookie year. It was on national TV in Toronto. I had one bounce over my shoulder from center ice. We only played in Toronto once or twice a year. Hockey Night in Canada, and it bounced over my shoulder! It's not so much that I lost sleep over it, but it forced me to refocus on everything. Whether pucks were dumped from the other end of the ice, you didn't take anything for granted after that.
Another one, Rod Langway went to dump one in around the glass. I cheated a little bit, went out early to go get it. It hit a partition on the glass. I was basically standing behind the net when it went in. That happened in my second year, right in the midst of me struggling and not having very much fun at that point. That might've been his only goal of the year which makes it worse! The fans got upset and I was not very smart, so I said something about the fans. It got me my ten games in the minors. It was a big eye opener.
The year had gotten off to a bad start, things weren't going well, I was frustrated and that just was the topper on it all. That's probably why I still remember it. You wish you didn't have those moments, but at the same time, I may not have played 20 years if I didn't have that moment.
THE LESSON
It was actually a good turning point in my career because it taught me not to react. Sometimes you’ve just got to let things roll off your back. While coaching, I used to tell the guys, "You can worry about it until you fall asleep and get up the next day, but then the sun comes out. It's over. There's nothing you can do about it.” It's easier to deal with when you're coaching, because there's no consequences when you're coaching. When you're playing, there's a consequence. It's the only job in the world where there's a light that flashes every time you make a mistake and it doesn't even have to be your mistake.
As my career went on, I treated it as, "Okay, it went in. Push the puck out for the referee, let it get to center and start over again." Instead of letting it bother me and thinking about it or worrying about it, I just played on. If you can make the saves when it matters, you're going to give up some goals when it doesn't matter. I think part of the problem sometimes is that guys get hung up on their goals against average, their saves percentage. But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is winning. If it's an 8-3 game and you give up a goal to make it 8-4, that’s not really a big deal, but sometimes guys take that seriously because they're looking at their numbers instead of looking at the big picture. As a coach, I wanted to know if you could make a save when it mattered. If it's a 2-1 game and you have to make a save to keep it 2-1, can you make that save? That's the important save.
I had Ronnie Low as a partner, and Ronnie had been in the league a long time. He was my sounding board. We didn't have a goalie coach back then. We pushed each other to be better, but at the same time we were both doing the same job, so we had to be able to rely on each other.
The hardest thing to realize is that you're going to give up some goals. That's just the way it is. It's a lot like golf—you can't be perfect, and over the course of time, bad things are going to happen. Those moments are uncomfortable, but sometimes they're important. You look back on them and they were worth it. Sometimes you have to have bad to have good. Back to top.
JAMIE MCLENNAN’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Bill Masterton Trophy Winner
TSN Analyst
I gave up a game time goal to Jaromir Jagr in Washington one night. It broke my back on a lot of different levels because it was such a crazy game. I was with Calgary. This one would have been in 2004, the year that they went to the finals.
It's a weird story because I was playing with a broken sternum. Miikka Kiprusoff was the starter, and Roman Turek was still there and he'd blown his knee out. Miikka was the guy, but he tweaked his knee and was out for a month. About a game in, I got a slap shot from Brian Rolston one night, my chest pad dropped down, and it fractured my sternum. I played the rest of that night, and ended up randomly getting a shutout.
I couldn't sleep, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move my arms. When we got back to Calgary, our trainer was like, "Yeah, you've got a fractured sternum in three different places," or whatever it was. Every time I moved my arms, I could hear cracking, and it wasn't good. But I told Darryl Sutter that I was fine to back up.
Then Kiprusoff got hurt a game later, and I had to play. So the team knew, but because I was playing, the media didn't know. Nobody knew anything. The guys were just unreal in front of me, blocking shots and doing all of these things to help me through the games. And this is where it comes to the Washington game. Olie Kolzig was the other goalie, and I want to say that both of us had a shutout going with like five minutes left in the game.
We scored to make it one-nothing, and I'm like, "Oh my God, we might make it out of this game here with a..." And then they scored right away, 1-1. And then we score to make it 2-1. This is in the last five minutes of the game. And then, I'll never forget, I allowed a bad goal to Gonchar—a slapshot from the point. I went to catch it, but I I didn't have the strength to keep my arm forward. Iginla scored with a minute left in the game. So I'm like, "Oh my God, the team is doing everything to save me." Jagr threw the puck from behind the net, and it hit the post, crawled up, hit the inside of my leg and dropped down with like 0.1 seconds left in the third period. That tied the game at 3-3. That was the worst goal because of the timing, because of everything. The team had bailed me out of so much trouble that night.
I can see it right now. I can picture it, how it went in. And this is what, how many years later? Sixteen or seventeen? I can live that goal.
I ended up costing the team a point that night and it bothered me so much. I went to Darryl afterwards, and I said, "I'm hurting the team, not helping."I think Roman Turek came back, he was just coming off of IR at the time. And then I ended up getting traded at the deadline. This was maybe a couple of weeks later. You always live with your last goal, your last save, your last loss. Sometimes you always wear it. And for me, that one, as many games as I played, and everything I was involved in, the fact that it stands out that vividly, it shows the magnitude of how it bothered me. And how I knew I let my team down. That's what bothered me.
THE LESSON
If you think you're healthy enough to put the jersey on, you can't use an injury as an excuse. And you always learn to compartmentalize things. I look back and to me, stylistically, I did change the way I tried to seal my post on that side.
The other thing, I think, is that you never want to put your team in that position. So it's in times where you needed to refocus or dig in, that was a good example of like, "Hey, you don't want to feel like that again, so let's not go down here, let's dig in. Let's do what I can to not ever have to feel like that ever again." I was a guy who always played with a little bit of fear, and that was a good reminder of why I played with fear. I never wanted to feel like that again.
From the mental aspect, it was a good reminder of how quickly things can change. To focus for a full sixty minutes as a goalie, to not take your foot off the gas, I think it was more of a reminder to be sharp every second that you're involved in a game. Back to top.
KEVIN WEEKES’ LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Eleven-Season NHL Veteran
Flagship NHL Network Analyst
It was some time in '03 or '04. We were playing at Tampa and Cory Stillman was playing for Tampa, because then he came to the Canes, and I was playing for the Canes at the time.
Tampa tied the game, and they went ahead on this dumb goal that Cory Stillman scored where he was probably around the penalty box on their side of the red line. He faked the dump in, like a hard around, and I bit on the fake. I jumped out and went outside of the net to stop it behind the net. And, of course, the hard around never came. He ended up faking the dump in and literally shooting it right into the empty net. I think that put them up four-three if I'm not mistaken, but it was so fricking embarrassing. I was so mad.
I just felt shame, really. Some people like to be embarrassed more than others. I don't like being embarrassed for doing something stupid. I felt like I did something stupid by biting on that fake, especially when it impacted my teammates. Basically I came in to the locker room and I was like, "Boys, so sorry, man. That was on me. Stupid. So sorry, boys. So sorry." And you know, guys are muttering under their breath but they're saying, "Yeah, we see no problem, man. We've got you. We'll get it back for you. We see no problem, no problem." But it just felt so embarrassing because it was such a seesaw game. After our guys worked so hard to come back, it was frustrating. You just feel like you let people down.
THE LESSON
Being removed from it now, it's different, because you can say it with a sense of distance. I always try to be conscious as best I can of what it felt like being in the skates, of being in the net myself, and I try not to lose sight of that.
In theory, it's about your body of work. It's about what you've done to that point in the season, where your career has been, how long you've played, how many games you play. But at the time, if and when you're struggling or if and when you let them in the back door or whatever the case may be, it's hard to compartmentalize that, you know? If you have any sense of pride or any sense of accountability for what you mean to the team and how your performance impacts the team, then it impacts you.
So for me, the biggest thing was always to just say, "Hey, boys, sorry, man," and work harder and try to dig deeper, but acknowledge that it was shitty. I also played with a couple of guys that would say, "Zamboni guy—what's the Zamboni guy doing? The parking lot attendant—the orange was a little bit too bright on his glow-sticks when he was walking." You know what I mean? It sounds so whack. Just say, "Hey, man, you know what? I need to be better." Boys, girls, whatever your team denomination is, say it. So sorry. That's not me. I'll be better. And then work hard to be better.
At the end of the day, as a goalie, it's like being quarterback. You can't be all things, do all things, run a power play, coach a power play, video, rehab somebody's ACL. You can't do all that at once. It's important to know that you need teammates around you, and if your team doesn't want to play in front of you, I don't care how good you are, it's going to make your job more difficult.
I've told some of my goalies that are Hall of Famers, ”You're good. Actually, you're great. I think you're sick. But if those guys don't want to block shots for you, good luck."
So when you let in a bad goal or even a half-questionable goal, you have to say, "Hey, man, I’ve got to have that. Sorry." Take them off the hook, Jonathan Quick style. That's why guys would go through a wall for him. Back to top.
MARTIN BRODEUR’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Three-Time Stanley Cup Champion
Two-Time Olympic Gold Medalist
Mine is pretty easy—it’s the Stephane Matteau goal in the ’94 playoffs. I think that even if I show up to Madison Square Garden right now, someone is going to yell his name at me. Since 1994, this goal has haunted me for all that time. It was Game 7, second overtime. If we had won that, we’d have gone to the Stanley Cup Finals. It was really early in my career too. I was a rookie.
That goal stayed with me. It was the only conversation—the Rangers were going to the Stanley Cup Finals, and I lived in New Jersey. It was right in my backyard, so that was why it was so hard to shake off. You heard it over and over and over. But for me, it was just a matter of pulling through in hard times.
THE LESSON
It’s a goal that motivated me. I got there, so close. It was disappointing obviously, because I knew I was able to get that far in the playoffs. The following year, I won the Stanley Cup. You learn from it, but it stuck with me on both sides. I know that goal made me a better goalie because it took away a dream from me, but on the other hand, that chip on the shoulder helped me out the following year to ultimately win the Stanley Cup.
I did a lot of visualization. For me, every time I’ve had a goal scored [on me] before the puck is dropped, I saw myself saving the shot that I just let in. That’s how I erased everything on my end. I think the success of a goalie is how you bounce back. If you look at a goalie’s save percentage after they get scored on, that shows you mental toughness. That’s something I always took pride in. I don’t know my stats per se, but every time I got cold in a game, I guarantee you I was probably over .700 to win the next game. You don’t want to let it slip, and that’s the mental toughness you have to have if you want to be a goalie.
You go out and have different experiences. In the same year, I went to four overtimes and lost a 0-0 game to Dominik Hasek in my first-ever playoff series—and that was to clinch the series also. You learn a lot from losing, you know? At the end of the day, more people are going to lose before they win, and that’s just the nature of things. You have to go through that process to be successful, and sometimes goalies get lucky and get on a good team. I got lucky right away and was on good teams, but we did have some disappointments along the way that built my character.
When you’re facing disappointment, you’re facing success also. You are that close. That’s why you can’t give up. When you live those disappointments, that means you did a lot of good things to get there. You don’t get disappointed when you lose all of the time; you get disappointed when you’re expected to win and don’t do it. You did something good when people don’t like you somewhere. Back to top.
MIKE RICHTER’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Stanley Cup Champion
World Cup Champion
Well, I've expunged all goals from my memory. All I can remember are the saves and the wins.
You know what? That's sort of the theme and it's really necessary. A couple of things. There's not been a goal that I've ever let in that I was happy with. I know that sounds obvious, but they do keep you up at night. You're just thinking, "What could I have done differently?" And if you don't know, you've probably done a lot right.
Maybe you had a tremendous game, but had one hiccup. Or maybe you were playing crappy and just getting back into the rhythm, and someone scored a really good goal, and it broke that rhythm. Yeah, they all hurt in their own way.
A goal that bothers me a lot was against the Pittsburgh Penguins. I was only a couple of years in the league and we had a great team. In a tight game, Ron Francis took a shot from just over the blue line. I picked it up late and it went over my pad and under my glove. It was well-placed. I'm not even sure he tried to, he got good wood on it, but it was ultimately an entirely saveable puck.
We ended up losing that game in overtime, and then went on to lose the series. They came back and beat us 3-2, and then they kind of destroyed us at home.
Pittsburgh was a great team, so they could have beaten us either way—but that contributed to it, for sure. And you know, you play goalie because you're in a position where you want to help your team out. On those days when you don't, and in fact, you're at fault for the loss, and maybe not just for the game but the series, that weighs heavily on you. When you're young, you don't have a body of work to compare that to, so it can be devastating. The pain of that one never goes away.
THE LESSON
What you have to do is scrape it off, and worry about the next shot. In that game, I did a pretty good job of it, came back and made a couple of saves. Everybody's great when things are going well, but when you make a mistake, how do you react to them? That's part of the maturing process. It helped me a ton as a young goalie. There's not a player out there that doesn't make mistakes, but the more you eliminate them as a goalie and as a team, the more you're going to have success.
You need the skill of being focused on the present moment, and that is something that doesn't happen overnight. You work your whole life for that. When you're younger, you almost have to figure it out. And the earlier you do that, the better off you are. Playing a lot of games as a young kid, it helps you with your skills on a daily basis, but it helps you mentally too. These are all skills that have to be practiced. And whether you recognize it or not, that is something that is hard won with effort and time, really.
You know, one guy that I learned a lot from just watching was Grant Fuhr. I always thought he was so good about being able to scrape it off and keep going. I thought Martin Brodeur was the same. He never seemed to let the first goal turn into a second, or a bad game turn into two bad games. So that's a skill that I was so much better at toward the end of my career than I was at the start.
In the beginning, you're just trying to have everything right. I think sometimes the more competitive you are, the more you want things to be perfect right from the get-go. And when you get that momentum going for a game or a period or season, it's all great. But what happens when it's not going well? Can you just relax a little bit and then dig down, be better? That's what you have to learn how to do. Back to top.
NIKOLAI KHABIBULIN’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Stanley Cup Champion
Olympic Gold Medalist
Well, obviously I've had many, so I think it’s hard to pick. One that comes to mind because it wasn't that long ago was my first game for Edmonton. It was the season opener in Edmonton—we played Calgary. The score was 3-3, and it was the last minute of the game, maybe like twenty-five, thirty seconds to go.
The puck was rolling towards me, so I went out to play it. While I was watching what to do with it, the puck rolled sideways and handcuffed me a little bit. It went into my feet and I couldn't do anything, and a Calgary player just picked it up and put it in the empty net. We lost 4-3, and that was my debut for the Oilers. Obviously, when you play Calgary in Edmonton and in Canada and it's a season opener…that didn't go well. After the game was over, you probably understand where all of the media went.
I was already older back then, and obviously having won the Stanley Cup already, I was more... how to say it? It didn't bother me. I mean, obviously it bothered because we lost the game last minute, and historically I played great against Calgary. I couldn't believe what just happened, but at the same time, it was my fault. I just stood up and answered all of the questions that were fired my way.
I think when you're younger, sometimes you have a tendency to hide away somewhere from the media when something like this happens. But just like I said, things happen. Yes, I made a mistake. Everybody does. This one was last minute of the game and we lost against a rival, so that kind of sucked.
THE LESSON
If this was a situation with a younger goalie now, I would just advise that you have to keep your eyes on the puck the whole time and keep your concentration, no matter if it's the first minute of the game, last minute of the game, middle of the game.
I think I took my eyes off of the puck for a little bit. And most of the time this probably wouldn't happen, but for some particular reason, at that moment it happened. At the same time, I really liked that I took it like a man and I didn't hide anywhere in the back room. You have to take responsibility for your actions and that's probably the lesson. I actually felt better after talking to the media about it.
When you talk to the media after a game, when you say it out loud, it takes a little bit of pressure off of you. The next game, you go in with a clean sheet, and I think it's a little bit easier. The media have to be kind of neutral and stuff, but we're all human. If you don't talk to them, they are going to let it slide once, twice, but then after a while, they are going to start putting some negative thoughts in their articles or columns.
You don't have to be kissy-kissy with them. But at the same time, if you talk to them, they're doing their job, you're doing your job and you respect each other. What happened, happened. It goes a long way, I think. Back to top.
NOORA RÄTY’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Two-Time NCAA National Champion
Two-Time WHL Champion
I don’t know which one to pick, so many. There are two from my college years. One was my freshman year, we played Clarkson in the NCAA Quarterfinals. I let in a bad shot from the red line because they pulled their goalie, so all I could think was, “I’ll catch it and score a goal.” We were up 2-1 and there was one minute left, so they tied the game—and then we had to go to overtime. Five minutes into overtime, we won the game, so it didn’t end up hurting us. I learned not to think too much ahead—especially not to think about scoring a goal when you have a one-goal lead!
My sophomore year, again at the NCAA Quarterfinals, we played Boston College. The first dump-in, I went behind the net and then screwed up the puck right in front. I think Kelly Stack tapped it in to the empty net. We were so hyped for the game, and then it started like that. Everyone, the whole team, was like, “Dang it!” It was a real momentum killer and the first mistake I made the whole season—a goal that you can really tell, that was her fault. It was 4-0 after the first period and all downhill after that play. That game ended our season, and we were one of the favorites to win it all.
THE LESSON
I really blamed myself that we lost, but then coming back the next two years, we won two National Championships. I don’t know if that game changed something for the next two years in terms of preparation, knowing that it was “one and done.” There is no room for mistakes. Then the next two years, I didn’t make one mistake in the playoffs. I felt bad for letting our seniors down because they wouldn’t have another chance at a National Championship. I felt it until almost the next season started—I had a lot to prove.
If I remember right, we had spring break the next week and I found myself in Cancún, Mexico. [Laughs] That was a good way to get over it. The trip would have been a lot better if we had won the title! Back to top.
STEVE CASH’S LEAST FAVORITE GOAL
Three-Time Paralympic Gold Medalist
Three-Time World Champion
I’ve developed a mindset that goals aren't so much negative, unless I make them out to be that way. I typically try to learn from each goal—but this one was just inexcusable.
This was back toward the early part of my career. I started out playing able-bodied hockey. When I converted to sled hockey, I'm not a tall guy as it is—so sitting down, you're already taking a couple of feet away from me. On top of being 5'6, I'm at a disadvantage. But the one thing that I was told when I first got on the sled was to watch out for the rainbows that go over your head. It made me think of a pop fly. I mean, I played outfield before, so what's wrong with that? And what you don't realize is that you have to use your hands to scoot around the ice. So when you're focused on that puck, if you're not worried about your position in the crease, then it could come back to bite you.
In this instance, we were playing Japan at the 2008 World Championships. Their captain has a pretty good shot from the point. I saw him, I thought he was going to rocket it, and instead he decided he was going to flip it over. I think he was just trying to make a chip play to the corner, and we can guess where it goes from here. It just so happened that I was at the top of my crease, trying to cut down the angle. I thought I was in a great position. I see this thing and as it goes over my head, I lost it in the rafters, so I just kind of hoped that it was going to go wide.
What happened? It dropped a foot behind me. And even then, I could have come back to get it, but I had already given up on the play so it bounced right behind me and in the net. That made it look even worse than it actually was. That’s one that I definitely stick in my back pocket for when I really need to be on my toes. It’s just the nature of the beast, but unfortunately, it happened during a very inopportune time for our team. We won, but in my mind, we had lost. You can't feel good after a moment like that.
THE LESSON
I was early in my career, so I took a lot of things pretty hard. It’s really hard to put something like that behind you because it's still a factor on the ice. Guy has the puck at the blue line. You don't want to be humiliated, so you have to play it just right. It's still kind of a mind game on the ice, but off the ice, obviously you see things like that in your nightmares. I mean, what goalie wouldn't? What I've been trying to do is practice as much as I can—hand-eye with juggling and things like that, just so I stay sharp. What I've learned over the course of my career is that concentration is key. So it's just a learning lesson.
If you were to ask anybody on the team back in the day how I would react to a goal like that, it was go in complete shock, laying on the ice yard sale for a solid two minutes and just being dramatic kind of thing. But it hits you to the core when a goal is scored on you, and you feel like it was no one else's fault but your own. It took me a while to recover immediately after the goal. So what I've learned is to just, in a way, act like it didn't happen. You can always go back and look at tape, or you can remember how the goal was scored, but when you're on the ice, really all you should be focused on is the next play. So what I try to do in practice is focus on the next puck that's coming at me. If it's a goal, that's the perfect time to reset yourself and forget about that moment because if you're going to dwell on things like that in practice, there's a good chance it's going to carry over tenfold into a game.
What I try to do is immediately after the goal is scored, close my eyes, and internalize what you're feeling at that moment. You can remember that those guys made you look silly the first time, but it's not going to happen again. So that's kind of the mentality that I take with me, and it just came with a lot of experience. Back to top.
