Most desperate saves are. Doesn't take away how great of a save it was.More luck than anything else.
However this save doesn’t exist in a vacuum. I am generally also not a fan of „luck“ based saves being labelled as SOTY, but in this case it’s a sequence of three saves in a row with heavy movement involved. You could argue that he made a mistake on the second save where he moved awkwardly and was totally out of balance to make that last save look so spectacular.Well, it worked but along the ice was free. Hasek would instead have cartwheeled on his back with his blocker arm tightly against the ice to cover the option along the ice while hopefully covering the upper parts of the net with his pads, which is really the best thing to do here.
This one looked good because by luck the opponent happened to hit the one part of the net he covered with his arm, but he seriously didn't cover a lot. I'm not a fan of calling saves where the opponent luckily hits just the one part he covers as incredible saves, even if they happen to work out. Especially in situations like this, where along the ice would be a free goal as it's completely uncovered, because by default, shooting the puck along the ice should be trivial.
In short, not save of the year for me, but I can see why people find it impressive. I'm not fond of results-based evaluation.
The lengths people go to discredit an incredible save. If it was pure luck, he wouldn't have even tried to make a save and the puck would've just hit him. Clearly that was not what happened, and clearly he covered more than 3 percent of the net by diving in front of the shot.A degree of luck? It was pure luck, beyond covering around 3% of the net.
An absolutely incredible save by Bobrovsky to keep the game ties at 2.
Real Speed
Slo Mo
Goalies know that the center of the net is likely where a shooter would put the puck on an open net.A degree of luck? It was pure luck, beyond covering around 3% of the net.