https://www.xbox.com/play/media/qzAyVtZDVw
This happens all the time. On this play, it just seems to me like the goalie would be able to simply steer this puck into the corner. Instead, it stops dead in it's tracks and gets stuck under him causing the goalie to freak out and knock the puck into the net.
This seems like a failure to resolve to an appropriate cover animation, imo. I would really love to see this improved.
It's interesting to me how the puck barely leaves the ice surface, yet the AI thinks it makes sense to raise his pads to save the puck, thus opening his 5 hole and starting a series of unfortunate events. This would be the wrong move to make as the puck clearly wouldn't clear the top of the goalie's leg pads. Perhaps there could be logic implemented that can decide if a puck is being shot high enough to clear the leg pads - similar to the goalie coverage grid that says whether the goalie has a part of the net covered - and if not, keep the goalie in butterfly.
I find that often times, the AI component of goalies, human and AI, resolve to save animations that don't always make sense. There's also a lack of contextual animations.
For instance, in real life hockey, if a goalie is being screened well and he expects a shot is coming, he'll typically drop down into a butterfly stance that makes him as wide as possible to cover as much of the net as he can.
Notice Anderson's reaction. He knows a shot's coming, but he has no idea where the puck is because of the screen. So, he tries to play the averages and drops into a stance that allows him to cover a bunch of areas of the net and hopes the puck hits him.
In this game, goalies drop into a normal butterfly stance that leaves portions of the net open. This is just an example of things goalies do in the game that don't make sense contextually, and animations we just don't have.
My overall point is simply this: goalies in NHL 25 feel incomplete. Netminders feel as though they aren't working with a full toolbox.
