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Devils @ Leafs - Oct. 21st, 7:00pm - TSN4

Tanev turns 36 in December. It is around his 13th upper body injury that will cost him games - usually between 1 and 10+. Older players wear down and are more susceptible. It is arguably closer to "to be expected" than "unlucky"
 
Guilt Trip said:
Yup. He needs to make those saves especially when the team is struggling. They can't have the mindset that if they make a mistake it's in the back of the net. That's the goalies job and both of those goals were very stoppable.
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It is a good theory. But I think sometimes our expectations get a little higher than what is reasonable.
NHL Edge clocked that slap shot by Hughes at 80.31 mpg which is 117.8 feet per second at 30 ft out from the center of the goal line.
Stolarz was outside the 6 foot radius of the blue paint to cut the open net down. So the shot traveled roughly 23 feet until it was past Stolarz.
Let's not get all NASA and ignore air friction, etc.
So the shot is past Stolarz in 0.195 seconds - a fifth of one second.
The visual reaction time for NHL goalies is approximately 0.16 to 0.21 seconds - the time for their brains to assimilate what they see and begin to react. And then there is the movement time after the goalie has figured out what to do.
So if Stolarz had the best reaction time, he would have 0.035 seconds (a 28th of a second) to move to stop that shot. If he's on the other end of the reaction time range, the puck is in the net before he can move.
Any hard shots around the dots or closer - they're beyond most human reaction time. For 99.999% of the people watching, they wouldn't even flinch before the puck was in the net if they were goaltending.

80-90% of goaltending stops now is more positioning - not reacting. Stolarz came out to cut the available net down as he should and he didn't leave a lot on the blocker side for Hughes - as Stolarz should. Unfortunately for Stolarz and many goalies in his situation, the puck had eyes for the little opening he left because he cannot possibly block 100% of the net.

Stolarz challenged, had pretty/very good positioning and got beat by a well placed hard shot that defied reaction time.
If Stolarz cheated on one side of the net, the other side would be open.
I do not think that Hughes shot was practically 'stoppable' unless it hit Stolarz. Unfortunately for Stolarz and the Leafs, it didn't.
 
Guilt Trip said:
It was stoppable...Stolarz himself said he blew it.
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I think he's just taking the heat because of his remarks after the last game - that the team preferred stayed in the locker room.
He doesn't control the laws of physics and the limits of human reaction time.
His body basically had to be pretty close to wherever that puck was going to be before Hughes took the shot.
It is wishful thinking. And like all NHL goalies, he knows it. So do his teammates.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1980796614852694387
Stolarz may think he blew it (goalies should believe they can stop everything), but I give credit to Hughes' deceptive release on this slapshot. He showed glove side with his body, and finished it blocker side, and even gave it a very slight delayed launch.

Goaltending positioning is prediction based on the presented information and Hughes did a great job manipulating Stolarz to give up an opening. Of course most players don't have that kind of time to make a play like that and it's a bit on the skaters for overloading to the bench side without coverage.
 
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