LAS VEGAS — John Tortorella rarely feels the need to explain himself or his decisions.
And in this case, he didn’t have to.
There will be no change in net Sunday, as the Golden Knights stick with Carter Hart in a game they must win to prevent Carolina from hoisting the Stanley Cup.
However, this time the coach decided to give several reasons.
“Because I know him,” he offered up Saturday.
His gut, and the fact that Hart was so good in the first three rounds, tells him the embattled netminder will snap out of a spell in which he’s allowed four goals in all five games of the Stanley Cup final.
“I know there’s a better game in him,” said Tortorella.
“I’ve seen it throughout the playoffs. I think he’s a very good goalie. We’ve got to do a better job around him, too. You can look at the numbers — that’s what you guys do, you spit out those numbers, but I’ve got to look at things differently and watch the play around him and the type of goals being scored.”
Right on cue, here are the troubling digits posted by Hart in the final: a 3.70 goals-against average and an .856 save percentage.
Tortorella’s option, backup Adin Hill, hasn’t played in months because his regular season was a nightmare, which included a 10-9-6 record, a 3.04 GAA and an .871 save percentage.
When asked if he considered putting Hill in late in their Game 5 loss, Tortorella called it the “stupidest question” he’s heard.
No wavering on that on Saturday.
“Pretty self-explanatory from the other night,” said Tortorella of his pointed goalie stance.
No one was fooled by the fact that Hart practised separately from the team on Saturday.
“I’ve got a pretty regimented routine, just taking care of the body and kept it the same,” said Hart of his skate with goalie coach Sean Burke.
“As a goaltender, you want to play every game and want to be ready to go. I’ve got a routine that I do, and I follow it.”
He has indeed played every game in these playoffs — 21 straight — prompting many to wonder if his declining numbers in the final may stem from fatigue.
“I feel good,” Hart said. “I haven’t been my best this series. I’ll be better next game.”
His teammates have no shortage of faith that he will.
“All the belief in the world,” said Rasmus Andersson. “I mean, he’s gotten us to this point, and he’s been really, really, really solid throughout the playoffs.
“At this point of the year, or really at any point of the year, just don’t care what the outside says. If you start reading into how much you suck, you can make a mistake, or how good you are if you score a goal, you’re just gonna lose your mind. So it just doesn’t matter what the outside world says, honestly.
“We know what we have in here, and it’s crunch time, it’s Game 6, we’re down, and we’ve got to find a way to win, and take it back to Raleigh.”
Tomas Hertl echoed the sentiment.
“We definitely have a lot of confidence,” he said.
“He’s played some really good hockey for us. We have to play a little better in front of him. We have to be a little stronger in the blue paint. They’re getting rebounds, screens, so we have to do a better job of that.”
As if facing elimination wasn’t enough, Tortorella confirmed what many feared after Game 5: second line centre William Karlsson won’t be available.
The injury removes one of the club’s most trusted two-way forwards, a player capable of matching up against top competition while still driving what has been the team’s most potent line. It forces a reshuffling down the middle at the worst possible time.
Hertl and Mitch Marner are likely to play significant time up the middle, as they’ve done many times.
“For me, it doesn’t matter,” said Hertl. “The last five years I’ve mostly played centre. Even when I play wing, I still take face-offs, so I kind of play both, so it’s not a big change for me. I think I can do both.”
The emotional motivation is obvious.
“He’s competitive, he wants to be in these types of games, and he plays for these types of games, so it’s a big reason why we want to go out and do our thing tomorrow,” said Marner, whose club could see Brandon Saad return to the lineup after seven games as a healthy scratch.
Now the task is simple, even if the execution won’t be.
Carolina hasn’t lost consecutive games since January. Vegas, down 3-2 in the series, needs to beat them twice.
“We don’t even think about it,” said Hertl, expecting a jacked-up T-Mobile Arena to help prevent the Stanley Cup from being presented post-game.
“We have to focus on just the game tomorrow. We have to win it. We know we’re strong, we know we can do it, and we will do it. Tomorrow needs to be our best game.”