from Jamie McLennan of TSN,

Next time you are watching a game and think to yourself, "that was a bad goal, the goalie has to have that shot", you may very well be 100 per cent correct, but you also may be completely wrong, based on some underlying factors.

Keep in mind a few things that are true when it comes to goaltending; physics and positioning, sometimes they both factor in to make a shot literally impossible to stop.

I was doing colour commentary for the Pittsburgh-Ottawa game the other day and on the winning goal with under two minutes left that beat Craig Anderson, (a slapshot from just inside the face-off dot by Christian Ehrhoff), there was a defensive breakdown that allowed Ehrhoff to walk right downtown, 'tee' it up and hammer it top shelf. Anderson did what he could to play the percentages on the shot, going into the butterfly, staying upright, and trying to make himself as big as possible. He was beaten by a great shot, but he also really had no chance to physically stop it if it didn't hit him.

continued

Physics has been used in hockey before, a few may remember this when George Malik was at Mlive during the playoffs in 2007,