{"id":551419,"date":"2026-04-12T23:06:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T23:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/551419\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T23:06:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T23:06:25","slug":"carter-hart-making-strong-case-to-be-vegas-golden-knights-starting-goalie-golden-knights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/551419\/","title":{"rendered":"Carter Hart making strong case to be Vegas Golden Knights starting goalie | Golden Knights"},"content":{"rendered":"

DENVER \u2014 Saturday answered a lot of questions on what the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> plan to do in goal.<\/p>\n

Carter Hart has made the case that it\u2019s his net going forward. And it\u2019s a strong one.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to ignore it after Hart put together one of the best games for a Knights goaltender in recent memory. His 30 saves Saturday in the 3-2 overtime win over the Colorado Avalanche<\/a> is why the Knights are back in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Hart has been thrown into the fire since returning to the lineup after missing three months with a lower-body injury. He\u2019s responded with four wins in all four starts \u2014 two-thirds of the games since John Tortorella became coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just happy to be back with the fellas,\u201d Hart said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re not playing, if you\u2019re injured, you\u2019re just trying to get back healthy and get back with the boys. It\u2019s not fun (being hurt), but I\u2019m just happy to be back with the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

What you can be sure of with Tortorella is he won\u2019t pretend to say he understands the ins and outs of the netminder.<\/p>\n

It starts and ends with if he played well or not, and if he made the saves to do so.<\/p>\n

Hart has made the saves. He\u2019s done so against the two hardest teams remaining on the schedule in the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> \u2014 albeit without Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman \u2014 and the Presidents\u2019 Trophy winners on Saturday. He has a .928 save percentage and 1.74 goals-against average since March 30.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel solid,\u201d Hart said. \u201cI think just right now, one day at a time. We can\u2019t get ahead of ourselves here. We got two more games to finish off here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tortorella knows Hart from their time together with the Philadelphia Flyers. He\u2019s spoken highly of him in the two weeks he\u2019s been on the job.<\/p>\n

He went as far as to say that before Hart had to leave the Flyers and turn himself into the police for the 2018 sexual assault scandal<\/a> involving Hockey Canada, that the Flyers were on their way to making the playoffs with him as their starter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was probably pretty frustrating, getting injured after coming back,\u201d Jack Eichel said. \u201c(He\u2019s) playing so well for us. I know how hard he worked in his rehab to get back. So much credit to him on what he\u2019s doing right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hart overcame two tough goals and made big saves as the game wore on. A one-timer on Valeri Nichushkin in the first period here. A shorthanded breakaway save on Brock Nelson there.<\/p>\n

He saved the best for last in the third period, stretching his left pad on Nathan MacKinnon with 3:47 left in regulation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been awesome,\u201d Eichel said. \u201cHe\u2019s made some incredible saves, some timely ones. He seems like he\u2019s in a groove right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, Tortorella hasn\u2019t locked in a Game 1 starter. It sounds like he still wants to give Adin Hill some runway between now and when the playoffs start next weekend.<\/p>\n

The Knights still have home-ice advantage to play for over their final two games, starting Monday against the Winnipeg Jets.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a chance Hill could get one of the games. There\u2019s also the possibility that the Knights have to roll with the hot hand heading into the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve both made some saves,\u201d Tortorella said, doubling down that both Hart and Hill are still going to see time down the stretch. \u201cWhich is a good thing at this time of year. We\u2019ll see where we go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was one thing to see Hart get the start against the Avalanche. That alone should\u2019ve been an indicator on who\u2019s leading the race.<\/p>\n

He backed up the belief from Tortorella and goaltending coach Sean Burke in a strong way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got such a good group here. Everybody\u2019s been so good to me,\u201d Hart said. \u201cEvery day is so much fun coming to the rink.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com.<\/a> Follow @DannyWebter21 on X.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Who: Jets at Golden Knights<\/p>\n

When: 7 p.m. Monday<\/p>\n

Where: T-Mobile Arena<\/p>\n

TV: KMCC-34<\/p>\n

Radio: KFLG 94.7 FM\/KKGK 1340 AM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER \u2014 Saturday answered a lot of questions on what the Vegas Golden Knights plan to do in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5129],"tags":[149,5317,5,4,74,39,5316],"class_list":{"0":"post-551419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vegas-golden-knights","8":"tag-golden-knights","9":"tag-goldenknights","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-vegas","13":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","14":"tag-vegasgoldenknights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116394248370172307","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}