Alright, let’s talk about this hockey stuff, the goalies, you know, the guys who try to stop the puck. Folks keep jabberin’ about the best, but what about the worst? Yeah, the ones that let the puck slip through like water through a leaky bucket. We ain’t gonna name names right off the bat, but we’ll get there, don’t you worry.
Now, I hear tell some fella, Martin Brodeur, lost a whole heap of games, near 400 they say. Imagine that! Almost 400 times that puck went past him and the buzzer sounded, and he had to skate off the ice with his head hangin’ low. They also say he won a lot too, but we ain’t talkin’ about that right now. We’re talkin’ about the stinkers.
Then there’s this other thing, they call it “goals saved above expected.” Sounds fancy, huh? Well, it just means how many goals a goalie shoulda stopped but didn’t. And some fellas, they’re real bad at it. I saw one fella, this Marcus Hogberg fella, he was the worst in the whole league. Couldn’t stop a beach ball, I reckon.
- Can’t stop the puck.
- Lets in too many goals.
- Just plain unlucky, maybe?
And it ain’t just the young fellas, no sir. Even the old timers, the ones who’ve been around the block a few times, they can have a bad year. Take this Bobrovsky guy, been playin’ a long time, but even he’s lettin’ in goals like a screen door lets in flies. People say he’s past his prime, I don’t know about that, maybe he just needs a new pair of glasses.
Now, why are these goalies so bad? Some say it’s just bad luck, puck takes a funny bounce, you know? But I reckon it’s more than that. Maybe they ain’t seein’ the puck good, maybe they’re too slow, or maybe, just maybe, they ain’t got the heart for it. It takes a special kind of fella to stand in front of that hard rubber disc comin’ at you like a bat outta hell.
And let me tell you somethin’ else, these teams, they pay these goalies a whole lotta money, sometimes too much money. And when a goalie ain’t stoppin’ the puck, well, that’s just money down the drain, ain’t it? It’s like buyin’ a cow that don’t give no milk.
It’s a tough job, being a goalie. One minute you’re a hero, stoppin’ everything, the next minute you’re the goat, lettin’ in softies. And the fans, oh boy, they let you know it. They boo, they yell, they throw things sometimes. It ain’t for the faint of heart, that’s for sure.
So, who’s the worst? Well, that’s hard to say for sure. Lots of fellas have bad games, bad seasons even. But the ones that stick out, the ones that make you scratch your head and wonder how they ever made it to the big leagues, those are the ones we’re talkin’ about. The fellas who couldn’t stop a beach ball, the fellas who let in goals from center ice, the fellas who make you wanna throw your hands up and yell, “For crying out loud, just stop the puck!”
And you know what? Sometimes, just one bad goalie can ruin a whole team’s chances. They can have all the fancy scorers in the world, but if the goalie can’t stop the puck, they ain’t winnin’ nothin’. It’s like having a car with a great engine but no brakes. You’re gonna go fast, but you’re also gonna crash.
So next time you’re watchin’ a hockey game, pay attention to the goalie. See if he’s quick, see if he’s focused, see if he’s got that fire in his belly. And if he’s lettin’ in goals left and right, well, you might just be watchin’ one of the worst goalies in the NHL.
Remember those names I mentioned? Brodeur, even though he won a lot, he also lost a lot. Hogberg, with his fancy stats tellin’ us he ain’t stoppin’ nothin’. And even old Bobrovsky ain’t doin’ so hot. They ain’t the only ones, mind you, there’s a whole bunch of ‘em. But they give you an idea of what we’re talkin’ about when we say “worst goalie.”
And at the end of the day, that’s all we are doin’ here, folks. Just talkin’ about hockey, tryin’ to make some sense of it all. And sometimes, makin’ sense of it means pointin’ out the fellas who ain’t quite cuttin’ it, the fellas who need to step up their game, or maybe just find a new line of work.
Tags: [NHL, Goalie, Worst Goalies, Hockey, Marcus Hogberg, Martin Brodeur, Bobrovsky, NHL Goalies, Performance, Save Percentage]
