Danny Briere’s planned rebuild has sent the fanbase into a frenzy. They’re playing “should he stay or should he go” with everyone on the roster, and none may spark a bigger conversation than soon-to-be 25-year-old goaltender Carter Hart. He’s entering the last year of his current contract and will be a restricted free agent next summer.
Hart has fallen into the same Flyers trap most of the veteran players have on the roster- we’ve seen him play spectacular hockey in the past, but the lackluster state of the team year after year has ground him down. He hasn’t posted a save percentage over .910 since 2019-20 and has averaged a 3.25 goals against average over the last three seasons as well.
Though predicting his next contract isn’t quite so cut and dry. Hart’s pretty much a unicorn when it comes to his experience and overall talent at his age. He has 201 NHL games under his belt with a career 2.96 goals against average and .906 save percentage, numbers that are far more disenchanting at face value than his play suggests.
Interestingly, when looking around the NHL, goaltenders aren’t getting paid quite as much as you’d think. Only three are getting paid more than $6.5 million annually (Price $10 mil, Bobrovsky $10 mil and Vasilevskiy $9.5 mil)
The closest behind them is John Gibson at $6.4 million. In fact, only six are making more than $6 million and 12 goalies total are making more than $5 million per season.
It’s a surprisingly low average price tag across the league.
Of the top 25 paid goaltenders in the league, Hart is younger than all of them except Spencer Knight and Jake Oettinger, both of whom Hart has significantly more experience than. Hart has 201 career regular season games, while Oettinger has 139 and Knight has 57.
Comparables
There really isn’t a perfectly direct comparable for Hart when it comes to lining up a contract extension. Some of the most recent direct comparables to Hart aren’t exactly comparables at all.
Ilya Sorokin signed a three-year, $12 million ($4 mil aav) deal in 2021 as a 25-year-old, but he had just 22 games of NHL experience at the time.
Igor Shersterkin signed his current contract a few hours after Hart inked his deal back in 2021, signing a four-year, $22.6 million ($5.6 mil aav) deal, a record-shattering contract for a goalie with 47 games of experience at the time.
Thatcher Demko signed a five-year, $25 million ($5 million aav) extension in 2021 as a 25-year-old, but he as well had less than 100 games to his name, suiting up for just 72 games over the course of four seasons.
There are a few top veterans who signed longer term contracts when they were 25, but it’s been quite a few years since those deals were inked.
Connor Hellebuyck was 25 when he signed his current contract back in 2018. He had 149 games of NHL experience at the time, but was a runner-up for the Vezina during the 2017-18 season when he signed his six year, $37 million ($6.16 million aav) extension.
John Gibson had 178 games under his belt when he signed his eight-year, $51.2 million ($6.4 million aav) deal with the Ducks during the 2018 offseason. He had averaged a .927 save percentage over five seasons in the league before signing his deal that made him a top five-paid goaltender in the league.
Matt Murray was 26 when he signed his current four-year, $25 million ($6.25 million avv) contract in 2020. He had 199 games of NHL experience though five seasons, but also had won two Stanley Cups with Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017. His play had declined during 2019-20 before the desperate Senators signed him to the deal in 2020 and he’s never hit his Cup-winning numbers since.
Contract Prediction
His accolades don’t match the super expensive vets like Price, Bobrovsky or Vasilevskiy, but he supercedes many of his comparable contracted goalies too. Hart’s stat line versus the play they actually get on the ice don’t exactly line up. He’s far more valuable than his career .906 save percentage suggests.
Because his stats at face value are kind of pedestrian, a bank-breaking raise may not be in his future just yet, but he’s more than likely not coming cheap either.
He’ll turn 26 during the summer of 2024, which is an interesting age when it comes to a contract extension. He’s young enough where the team probably wants to get him on a max-term deal, meanwhile the player may be interested in a shorter-term contract to cash in on a significantly higher salary as he enters his 30’s.
It’s possible he settles in the $6 – 6.5 million aav range and probably four to five years when it comes to term. It makes him among the highest paid goaltenders now, the Flyers get him through the bulk of the peak of his career, but leaves the door open for him to cash in later if he remains one of the best in the game.
Conclusion
The recent rumors of an impending trade are greatly exaggerated. There’s a far greater chance Hart is here for the long term than it is he has already played his last game in Philly. He’s by far their most important player on the ice every night, and if the rest of the team ever gets even semi-good again, the organization will finally get to reap the benefits of having a top goaltender on the roster rather than feeding him to the wolves every night.
His rather unique blend of experience at a young age mixed with a visually underwhelming stat line makes his contract a bit harder to predict, but he’ll get a pay raise one way or another, it just comes down to whether he’s among the highest paid guys in the league or somehow falls in the mix on a slightly cheaper than anticipated deal.
The 2023-24 season could go a long way in determining which way those chips fall. If he stands on his head and somehow works himself into a Vezina conversation, that contract extension could lean towards the higher side. If his play continues in the good-not-great range, they may be able to sign him for a slightly cheaper average annual value.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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