Everyone loves a good hockey goal. Whether it’s a beautiful end-to-end rush, a toe drag that splits the D or a fancy wrist-shot that beats the goaltender high, off the cross-bar and in, hockey goals come in bunches during the regular season and there have been some that are exceptionally beautiful.
However, sometimes there happens to be a puck that goes in that maybe shouldn’t have. A simple dump-in that takes a funny bounce, a last-ditch effort that beats the goaltender or a play made out of nothing that perhaps could have been stopped but wasn’t, these are the biggest fluke goals of the 2014-15 NHL season.
Biggest Fluke Goals of the 2014-15 NHL Season
5. February 20th, 2015: Brad Stuart stuns Corey Crawford with goal from center ice.
You could flip the puck into the offensive zone a thousand times and you’d never expect this to happen. Upon heading off to the bench for a line change, Brad Stuart flipped the puck into the the Chicago Blackhawks zone as the Avalanche held a 3-1 lead. The puck slid towards Corey Crawford, who was prepped and ready to handle it and fire the puck back up the ice. Instead, the puck knocks off the blade of his stick and goes into the net, silencing the Chicago crowd. What seemed like a harmless dump-in turned out to be the final nail in the coffin of this game.
4. March 8th, 2015: Alexander Semin scores while lying down.
A play that really starts from nothing, Alexander Semin takes a shot from the point and hopes for a tip from Riley Nash. When that doesn’t happen, Semin heads for the net and Nash feeds him a pass. En route to the slot, Semin is tripped up by Oilers defenseman Oscar Klefbom, causing the referee to throw his arm up for a delayed penalty. As Semin is down and out and a penalty is coming up, he manages to swing his stick towards the puck and sweeps the puck behind Richard Bachman, without looking, At the time, the Hurricanes were down 3-0 and just go on the board, eventually going on to defeat the Oilers by a score of 7-4.
3. March 10th, 2015: Barrett Jackman scores from center ice.
With just one minute left the third period, the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets were tied up at 4-4. The face-off was held just outside the Jets zone. As the face-off was won by the Blues, the puck was past behind to Robert Bortuzzo, who then sent it to Barrett Jackman. Passing by the red-line, Jackman fired the puck into the zone before crossing the Jets blue-line and the unbelievable happened. Goaltender Ondrej Pavelec took his eye off the puck for one moment and in that moment, the puck beat him. The goal proved to be the game-winner, and Pavelec looked to his defense, dumbfounded by the events that took place.
2. November 28th, 2014: Tyler Ennis’ amazing second effort.
Carey Price had the best season of his career in 2014-15, but that doesn’t make him invincible against fluke goals. Early in the season, in a game against the Buffalo Sabres, forward Tyler Ennis broke in with some speed and fired a shot at Price. While the initial save was made, Ennis’s agility allowed him to get past defenseman Alexei Emelin, reaching for the puck and hammering the rebound behind Price, before falling to the ice. While the goal was a beauty, it was also one you’re not used to seeing Price give up and some fans were left wondering how that beat him.
1. December 18th, 2014: Dwight King’s kangaroo hop
There are bounces and then there are these types of bounces. With less than eight minutes remaining in the game, Vladimir Tarasenko attempts to carry the puck through the neutral zone as his team is down 5-4. He turns the puck over and Dwight King manages to get a hold of it. Flipping it into the offensive zone to perform the traditional dump-and-chase, the puck instead makes a bee-line for the net. Martin Brodeur, in position to stop the puck and move it up, is surprised when the puck suddenly takes a large bounce, beating him over the shoulder and even knocking the water bottle off. It’s just one of those things where the goal scorer gets a good laugh and all the goaltender can do is shake his head and shout obscenities at the puck for fooling him.
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