The net behind me is mine. Nobody scores. That puck doesn't go in that net.

You go out from the net and skate backwards, trying to pick up speed. As the forward gets closer, you're backing up with him. The idea is not to show him any of the net until it's too late.

If the puck is right in front of him, he can't shoot it. When the puck's on the side is when he'll shoot. The first thing I look for is the hand he’s shooting with, and who he is, a defenseman, or a goal scorer who will have a few tricky moves.

You're concentrating so much on him coming in on you someone could blow a horn off behind you and you wouldn't hear it. All you hear is yourself thinking.

Goalies are a strange breed. We get in front of things that everybody else gets out of the way of. It comes down to eye-hand coordination, a reaction to get in front of the puck, with your whole body if you can. If you can't, you move your hand, leg, even your head to make a save.

The puck is coming at you at 90 or 100 miles an hour. You have to stop it and think about where it’s going next.

When you make a big save where the goal should have gone in, it's not just for yourself. It uplifts the team. You can see the life on the bench.

Other players make mistakes and play keeps going. When the goalie makes a mistake and gets scored on, everything comes to a dead stop. Everybody in the stands sees it.

Every goalie gets scored on. Some goalies it bothers. It's something you have to work through. After a goal, I look at what could I have done to stop it. There's always something you could do.

There's a lot more thinking involved than people realize.

Wade Flaherty is a goalie for the San Jose Sharks.