For the second time in as many games against the Senators, Anton Lundell ramped a goal in off Joonas Korpisalo's back.
When Florida Panthers' forward Anton Lundell ramped a puck in off of Ottawa Senators goalie Joonas Korpisalo's back from an impossible angle on Thursday night, it seemed like the kind of goal you might score once in a career.
But remarkably, Lundell had just done it to Korpisalo a few weeks ago, the last time these two clubs met.
On February 20th, Lundell ramped one in off of Korpisalo's back to give the Panthers the overtime victory. In both cases, you have to tip your cap to Lundell's precision shooting. But in both cases, you're dealing with shaky goaltending fundamentals from Korpisalo.
On Thursday night, the Senators were down 2-0, knowing that allowing another goal would all but sink them. Korpisalo's focus should have been laser-sharp at that point. And considering that it was the same guy who embarrassed you in February from a bad-angle shooting lane, you'd think that would add an extra layer of attention.
Nope.
In both cases, Korpisalo was cheating, leaning forward, allowing the same guy to bounce a puck in off the back of his shoulder. In both cases, the goal was devastating.
When your goalie is inattentive or cutting corners at such crucial points in hockey games, how in the world is this team ever going to get to the next level with that?
There's no question that it's always tricky to properly evaluate a goaltender when the team defence is disorganized. It makes life harder and more unpredictable for any goalie. It's almost certainly part of the reason that goalies like Cam Talbot, Filip Gustavsson, and Joey Daccord began to post better numbers after leaving.
When team defence is weak, I will always assign it some of the blame when a goalie is struggling.
But when you see stoppable pucks continue to bleed through Sens goaltending again and again, it's become crystal clear that not all the blame can fall at the feet of a scrambly, disorganized team defence. It's more than that.