December 2nd, 2025 will be the day that changed the trajectory for the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2025-26 season, starting their run for a 2nd Stanley Cup Championship. That’s the day that Carter Hart once again stepped on NHL ice.
Despite posting some of the lowest numbers of his short NHL career, Carter Hart has proven once again that he’s built for deep playoff runs.
In 2019-20, Hart backstopped the Flyers through, essentially, 3 rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Hart finished that playoff run with a 9-5 record, a 2.23 GAA, .926 SV%, and two shutouts in 14 starts. Stepping into the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in his career, he’s posting eerily similar numbers at .924 SV% and 2.22 GAA.
The 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs nearly didn’t happen for Vegas. With just 8 games left in the season, the Golden Knights fired coach Bruce Cassidy in favor of grizzled veteran John Tortorella. Torts, as he’s affectionately called, became the voice the team needed, which contributed to Carter Hart standing tall with a 6-0-0 record, taking advantage of the weak Pacific Division and running straight to the playoffs.
Round 1 seems to show what Hart was made of. Despite being down in Game 1, Hart made 31 saves in a comeback win to set the tone for the rest of the series, burying the Mammoth in 6 games. Round 2 saw Hart and company face off against the Cinderella Anaheim Ducks, who quickly fell apart due to injury and poor depth.
The biggest surprise of all came when Hart backstopped Vegas against the Presidents’ Trophy winning Colorado Avalanche - not yielding a single game and riding a sweep straight into the Stanley Cup Final.
Adversity and depth isn’t something Carter Hart has had to face very much these playoffs. Utah and Anaheim were respectable, but they couldn’t produce much offensive fire power consistently enough when they needed it. Colorado lost star defenseman Cale Makar. Makar sustained an upper-body injury during the second round and never was right again — he missed the first two games against Vegas and was limited in the final two. The Avalanche too, were plagued with the injury bug. I don’t want this to sound like knock on Hart - he faced a lot of tough shots against Colorado and made plenty of big saves. Then there’s Carolina.
A team that has gone 12-1, whose only loss came after one of the longest playoff breaks in NHL history at 11 games. This is a team that is healthy, strong, deep, and hungry. Hart will also have to challenge his toughest goalie rival in all these playoffs in Frederik Andersen.
My Prediction: Carter Hart will steal the show. In quality starts percentage (starts above .900 SV%), Hart (75.0) is actually slightly ahead of Andersen (69.2), and with the adversity he’s faced he does have something to prove. Watching him on the ice, you’re going to see a goalie that will put everything on the line, everything into every save he can make. While I’m not expecting high scoring games, I am expecting some heartbreak for Carter Hart. Carolina is just on another level that Vegas has yet to face. Hart will need to outperform the statistically best goalie in these playoffs. Andersen has flipped a switch in the playoffs that nobody saw coming. He wasn't even guaranteed his job in October (Bussi had taken the net for much of the year). This is a guy whose body has betrayed him repeatedly — blood clots, knee surgery — playing the best hockey of his life at 36.