I’m sure Carter Hart thought he knew what he was getting into.
In our little sports world, no pressure weighs so heavily on a set of shoulders than those teenagers anointed to stand in the net for the Canadian team at the world junior championship. Even more so for those who are called when the tournament is in Canada.
We’ve all seen it before. It seems to go one of two ways: either the glorious moments when Canadian teams were outplayed and games were stolen, or the most awful of times, when games that Canada could have or should have won slipped away by a weird carom, an unlucky bounce, a puck that went unseen. As much as we say we can imagine what it’s like, there’s no knowing the perspective of the kid who stands with his back to the crossbar and stares out at the game in front of him with the cheers of the home crowd ringing in his ears.
Carter Hart witnessed it, lived it, and survived it, at least in the opening game of the 2017 WJC. He was good, maybe very good, but probably not great. His team won, beating the Russians 5-3. He stopped 14 of 17 shots, but put aside the numbers and don’t do the math on the save percentage. It’s tempting to say that it’s all about a “W” but it’s more than that. He survived and did so only somewhat scathed.
The Canadian team’s last exhibition was a worry. Against Switzerland, the puck beat Hart on three of the first eight shots he faced. The last was eminently saveable, a gaffe of the worst sort, the sort of thing that has people imagining what it would be like to cost your team its tournament life or even a gold medal.
There was one awful sequence for Hart Monday night.
Ten minutes into the game, with play going all Canada’s way and the home side leading 1-0, Hart faced his second shot and moments later dug it out of his net.
The shot that beat Hart found the top corner, stick side, and it rocketed off the stick of Mikhail Sergachyov—that’s the official tournament spelling better known as Mikhail Sergachev, the Windsor Spitfires defenceman drafted by the Montreal Canadiens last June.
A pall fell over the ACC. The collective thought bubble: you’re not going to win a tournament of any sort stopping every other shot.
If the fans tried and probably failed to keep it in context—through the first 10 minutes, ushers had been more active than the goaltender.
A star with the Everett Silvertips, Hart was the first goaltender selected in the NHL draft in June but league scouts did not consider him the best goalie in this tournament. Most would point to Hart’s counterpart in the Russian net, Ilya Samsonov, the first goaltender selected in the 2015 draft. Canada swarmed Samsonov most of the night—the Canadian forecheck stalled Russian breakouts, the home side cycled for stretches and drew penalties and basically kept their own end of the rink tidy. Three minutes into the third, Canada took a 4-1 lead on a powerplay goal by Mathew Barzal, his team’s best player shift-in and shift-out. It looked like Hart, who had only faced eight shots at that point, was home and cooled out.
It didn’t play out exactly that way, however.
Just a couple of minutes later, with Russia on a power play, Kirill Kaprizov skated into the slot and, with way too much room and time, wired a shot that Hart couldn’t get a glove on. Or toward. He had no chance but they don’t attach asterisks to goals on the game sheet. Four-two.
Barzal set up Dylan Strome for his second powerplay goal on the night and the Canadian lead was again extended to three goals and again Hart looked like his night would peacefully wind down.
Ninety seconds or so later, Yegor Rykov beat Hart. Five-three with just under 10 minutes to go.
There’s no telling how many fans in the stands last night were in Buffalo a few years ago when Canada had what looked like an insurmountable lead in the third period against Russia in the gold-medal game—already the hockeyists in the press box were being handed ballots for the most outstanding player and what not. It was at that point Mark Visentin gave up five consecutive goals on just 10 shots. The meltdown was so profound that it seemed like it would take a sponge to get him off the ice.
Carter Hart’s moment against Russia came on the shift after Rykov’s goal. A little loose play around the Canadian net led to Kirill Urakov picking up the puck at the edge of the circle with Hart trying to shift back into position. Urakov wired a snapshot. The puck hit Hart’s glove and stayed there.
Hart was tested against Russia and survived. The pressure he felt we can’t imagine. The pressure he would have faced if Urakov had drifted the puck by him even he can’t imagine. Mark Visentin could tell him about it, I suppose. Jake Allen. Mackenzie Blackwood. Marc-Andre Fleury. The WJC’s heartbreak kids. Did it break Visentin, who is in the ECHL these days? Maybe, maybe not. Did it crush Fleury? Nope. Some get through to the other side of heartbreak but who really wants to find out if you’re made of that stuff?
After the save on Urakov, Hart didn’t face another serious scoring chance the rest of the way. The rest of the tournament awaits him. As do mounting pressures.
