Everett Silvertips head coach Kevin Constantine prefers to hold off deciding who will start at goaltender until gameday, though at times this season the starting goalie seemed to be a foregone conclusion.
Carter Hart started 63 of the first 68 games of the regular season while compiling a 35-23-1-3 record with six shutouts, a 2.14 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage.
Yet Hart missed the final four games of the regular season and the first three games of the postseason with an undisclosed lower-body injury, leaving Everett’s playoff fate in the hands of backup Mario Petit.
All Petit did was go 3-0 with a shutout, a 1.33 GAA and a .953 save percentage as the Tips took a three-games-to-none lead over longtime nemesis Portland. Thus, after Hart returned to practice this week and was cleared to play, Constantine was faced with his toughest goalie decision of the season.
“It’s hard not to start Mario because Mario did a great job for us,” Constantine said outside a jubilant Silvertips locker room at the Moda Center Wednesday night.
“We try to base playing people and how much we play people and ice time on performance and from a performance standpoint Mario deserved to be right back in the net for Game 4,” he continued. “But Carter also deserves consideration for what he did for our team this year. He was our Most Valuable Player and put us in position to have home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.”
It was indeed Hart who got the nod for Game 4 and closed out the series sweep for the Tips with a 28-save effort in Everett’s 4-2 victory. Hart showed no ill effects from his two-week layoff and both goals allowed came on Portland power plays.
Even Hart, projected to go in one of the first three rounds of this June’s NHL draft, marveled at how well Petit played while filling in between the pipes.
“Mario did fantastic,” Hart said. “Stepping in and seeing a guy who hasn’t played a lot of goalie or not as much as he wanted, and seeing him come in and steal the show, was what he really did. I’m really happy for the success he had, and he deserved it. He’s a hard-working kid and he’s just a great guy all around and a great teammate, and he deserves that success.”
With the potential sweep imminent the coaching staff also likely wanted to get Hart some live-game action before Everett’s second-round series with the Seattle Thunderbirds. If Hart hadn’t played Wednesday and the Tips had won, he would have had 27 days between appearances by the time the Everett-Seattle series begins April 8 in Kent.
“It was a very difficult decision and it wasn’t made easily because of how well Mario had done,” Constantine said. “But in fairness to what Carter had done throughout the season he also deserved to play. Just back-to-back nights and maybe trying to get a fresh guy in there we just decided to put Carter in.”
You would have to think the Tips will go with Hart for the duration of the Seattle series because his numbers against the T-Birds are impressive. In 10 games this season Hart had a 6-2-1-1 record with a 1.32 GAA and a .951 save percentage.
But Constantine won’t make that decision until the morning of April 8.
Notes
The schedule for Everett’s second-round series with Seattle was announced late Wednesday night. The series opens at ShoWare Center with games Friday, April 8 and Sunday, April 10. It shifts to Everett for games Wednesday, April 13 and Friday, April 15. If necessary the series would return to Kent Saturday, April 16, head back to Everett on Monday, April 18 and conclude in Kent on Tuesday, April 19.
For the latest Silvertips news follow Jesse Geleynse on Twitter @jessegeleynse.
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