Puck Droppings: Blooper Alert Toskala beaten by 178 foot dribbler - video

by ryan | March 19, 2008 at 05:52 pm

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The Leafs are working hard to make the playoffs, bad bounces like this don't help. Luckily, they still won the game. Check out the video here and a montage of similar goals here.

As soon as the puck bounced past Vesa Toskala on Tuesday night, goalies past and present felt the Toronto netminder’s pain.

“I almost threw up when I saw it last night,” former NHL goalie Kay Whitmore told The Canadian Press on Wednesday. “You get that terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach. You feel bad for the guy because you know you’ve been there and how bad it feels.”

The Maple Leafs won the game but the hockey world was still abuzz Wednesday after Toskala was victimized by a 178-foot bouncer from New York Islanders defenceman Rob Davison — ironically his former teammate in San Jose.

“That’s happened to all of us,” said former star goalie Kelly Hrudey, now an analyst on Hockey Night In Canada. “Everybody that saw the goal last night knows that it was a crazy hop and there’s not a lot you can do. You can try and be as big as possible but if the combination of a puck bouncing like that and sometimes poor ice — the potential always exists.