The Philadelphia Flyers have no shortage of things piling up on their to-do list, and none many be more important than the fate of their starting goaltender Carter Hart. Hart, who just turned 25 in August, is in his sixth professional season and is off to a decent start even though it was disrupted by injury. He registered five wins in nine games with a .921 save percentage and 2.34 goals against average. Even in just a limited sample size it’s his best season statically since 2019-20.
The problem is, his contract is up at season’s end when he’ll be a restricted free agent. His next contract is a bit difficult to predict, simply because his mix of age, work rate, recent pedestrian numbers but higher than average ceiling makes him a bit of a unicorn from other comparables around the NHL.
Now, the elephant in the room is the ongoing 2018 Team Canada investigation, whom Hart may or may not be a part of. Hockey Canada recently reached a decision on sanctions, but the findings were appealed, meaning another potential very long wait until finality comes. And it’s still unknown if the names ever get released. While the consequences of their actions and the punishments remain a bit unclear, if Hart is named, the Flyers are going to be without their starter for an undetermined amount of time. Maybe forever.
Rumors emerged during the 2023 offseason that the Flyers attempted to shop Hart around the league, but never pulled the trigger due to both the price tag and team’s unwillingness to add someone who could be involved in a criminal investigation. Even though it keeps getting teased that the names of the guilty will eventually be released to the public, it keeps getting delayed and, at this point, may never happen at all.
And this isn’t trying to make light of the situation or allegations. The Flyers’ willingness to distance themselves from Hart could be very telling as to what they know about the likelihood of his involvement. But this isn’t to say Hart is guilty or innocent (and just because the names may never become public doesn’t mean he’s innocent either) but with the sheer lack of public info and no guarantee of finality could make the situation more or less irrelevant when it comes to the business side of whether or not to re-sign him in the first place.
Even shelving the Team Canada thing and just focusing on the Flyers’ “rebuild” and internal goalie depth, there still isn’t an overwhelming amount of reason to bail on Hart at this point in time.
The idea of dealing Hart boils down to banking on one of the three of 23-year-old Sam Ersson, 21-year-old Aleksei Kolosov, or 18-year-old Carson Bjarnasson stepping up in his wake and becoming the goalie of the future. While there’s a likelihood all could reasonably succeed in due time, Ersson is the only one who has professional North American experience under his belt, and it’s been a mixed bag in a small sample size to say the least.
It’s a positive that the Flyers have multiple players in the pipeline they feel can emerge as high-end starting goalies in the near future, but counting chickens at the expense of losing an established youngster like Carter Hart doesn’t seem to be a great strategy.
And therein lies the problem. Prematurely pulling the rip cord on the guy -potentially selling him for pennies on the dollar- who may just continue his career unabated is one of those missteps that will be a black mark on the franchise and general manager for years to come. It’s been over a decade and there’s still people who talk about Sergei Bobrovsky, the young guy who had promise that they moved on from in favor of an option that didn’t seem smart at the time then went on to succeed big time on a different team, and Bobrovsky at the time wasn’t anywhere close to what Hart is right now.
Goaltenders rarely ever get proper value in the trade market, especially since the Flyers would just be dealing his rights at either the trade deadline or offseason. Having Hart taken from them by Canadian police if or when the ruling is dropped is one thing (and if that ends up being the case his contract could probably be terminated), but voluntarily ditching him in favor of going all in on Sam Ersson while waiting for the development of Kolosov and Bjarnasson and coming up empty on all three is going to be a huge mistake that will not only look bad in hindsight, but be one of those moves that is highly controversial at the time.
Trading away or re-signing Carter Hart is going to be one of the biggest overall decisions the franchise has made in many years. For one reason or another, it sure feels like a trade is the most likely outcome for Hart and the Flyers, but is it a move they’ll live to regret? For a franchise that loves to hand out big contracts like candy, paying the one guy who’s worthy of a major payday shouldn’t be a problem. Obviously there are unknowns outside of their control, but if the Flyers are serious about trying to win games instead of actually rebuilding during their rebuild, then moving on from their top goaltender voluntarily is just a bad idea.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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