For most casual hockey fans, particularly those watching from afar, this is what’s seen on a typical scoring attempt. Without the knowledge — or eyesight — to dissect every movement and split-second reflex, finding the back of the net can look like a thrilling bit of chaos.

But from a goaltender’s point of view, it’s a technical mix of mental analysis, subconscious reaction and delicately calculated positioning with the hopes of saving the puck and maybe even orchestrating the entire team’s strategy and focus.

For high school goalies such as St. John’s junior Jack Faricy and Walter Johnson freshman Isaac Russ, it can take years to master the pressure and power of the position. That challenge keeps them coming back for more.

After playing several years, Russ says he started to grow tired of the sport. Then, at age 7, he tried goaltending for the first time, a move that reinvigorated his love of hockey.

“The first time I went out [as goalie],” Russ said, “it was phenomenal, and I’ve been playing it ever since.”

Faricy had a somewhat simpler reason for gravitating to the position.

“At the time, I was really into Transformers, and so I thought the goalies were really cool because they had the really cool pads,” he said. “So that’s what got me interested in goalie. Then I found out that this is actually fun too, so I stuck with it.”

Faricy and Russ have both garnered attention by stepping up in big ways this season. Faricy, using what he has learned from playing behind Chase Hornbecker earlier in his St. John’s career, has become the top-ranked goaltender in the Mid-Atlantic Prep Hockey League and has allowed just a single goal in league matchups this season for the Cadets (12-4-3).

Russ has also proven himself as a game changer for the Wildcats (7-2-1), logging more than 180 saves so far, including a highlight performance during their 5-2 win against Churchill last month in which he had a 94 percent save percentage.

Both goalies say the technical depth of the position — the part that remains hidden to so many — makes it so addicting. Many of the foundational principles of goaltending involve maneuvers that sound simple, but when injected into a game as fast as hockey, they become a carefully choreographed series of decisions.

There’s the T-push, in which a goalie explodes off his back foot and slides to the side to quickly get into position. Then there’s decisions about how far to come out of the crease to shut down as many scoring angles as possible. New goalies have to train their feet various ways, focusing more on heel strength for side-to-side movements compared with other skaters who primarily use their toe to move forward or backward.

“Maybe I need to change the way I hold my hand or adjust my pinkie to a more horizontal position — it gets down to that level of minutiae,” said Jason Wolfe, a goaltending coach and founder of Wolfe Hockey Development, a hockey school where Russ trains. “Because when you’re talking about a puck coming 100 miles an hour at you, at any given point you have an inch to move in any direction from close range. So we have a saying that it’s not the things that happen once they shoot the puck. It’s all the things that we do before they shoot that [determines] whether we stop it.”

“At the speed of a game, it can be very difficult,” Faricy said, “especially when you throw in screens and defensemen and tips that make things go awry.”

Being covered in padding makes it all the more difficult. With reduced range of motion, goaltenders have to plan for every movement, from turning their head to raising a glove for a save.

Faricy says it all becomes second nature with time and training, like when he predicted a breakaway in a recent tournament to make a tough save.

“I saw his eyes, he looked up at the net, and subconsciously I just thought, ‘He’s going to the net,’ ” Faricy said. “ … It just gets ingrained into your brain and it starts making decisions for you.”

When goaltenders aren’t busy making saves — and sometimes even while they are — they use their vantage point on the ice to coordinate the defensive line and identify potential dangers. This skill set calls for not only strategic intelligence but also a calm and authoritative presence in the rink.

Russ and Walter Johnson Coach Jared Webb stress the importance of understanding playmaking strategy for goalies to expect certain lines of attack.

“Anticipation for a goalie is very, very important,” Webb said. “ … I tell [my goalies] to watch a lot of offensive hockey just so they can learn what offensive players like to do and where pucks might go and to see the ice a little better.”

Being a freshman goalie on a team looking to defend its first state championship in 18 years comes with a lot of pressure to fill that leadership role. Even with a wealth of experience playing club hockey, Russ says the high school level brings more speed and physicality than he’s used to.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for me to just get better at goalie as a whole,” Russ said. “It has been pretty nerve-racking to play, there’s some pretty big crowds. … I just really hope I can fill that role as a backbone of the team.”

Both Faricy and Russ agree the best goalies project a presence of stability on the ice, so that the rest of the team can focus on their own jobs.

For Russ, the mental focus required to fill that presence comes down to a mantra he tells himself in the heat of games: “Next shot, next save.”

Faricy says it another way: “Don’t see this as an opportunity that we’re going to get scored on. See it as an opportunity to shut them down.”