Carter Hart Has Been A Key Factor For The Flyers At Home

The young goaltender has been making sure home-ice advantage is a factor when any opposing team comes to play the Philadelphia Flyers.

At the Wells Fargo Center, the Flyers are 24-5-4. Carter Hart alone is 19-2-2 when he plays at home. That means he is responsible for almost 80% of the Flyers wins on home ice. It also means that about 82% of his total win total has come at home. Overall, Hart has a 22-12-3 record. It’s his home ice play that has played a factor in not only the win streak but the Flyers’ overall dominance when they play at home.

While the Bruins have one more point at home, the Flyers have the best home points percentage in the league at .788. Boston has played one more game at home than the Flyers but has lost in overtime five more times. The Flyers have two more regulation only wins and one more regulation plus overtime win. They also have one shootout win.

When it comes to goals against, the Flyers have given up the least amount with 67. They average about 2.03 goals against per game, also the fewest in the league. This comes averaging 28.5 shots against per game, the fourth-fewest. Only the Blues, Hurricanes and Blue Jackets average fewer shots against.

Using Natural Stat Trick and looking at goaltenders with about 600 minutes played, we can get a better sense of how Hart compares against most team’s starting goaltenders. Carter Hart has the third most wins on home ice. Jordan Binnington and Andrei Vasilevskiy both have one more win than Hart. Among all of those goaltenders, Hart has the second-best goals-against average at home. But that’s not the end-all, be-all stat for a goaltender. To better understand Hart’s impact at home, we’ll have to look deeper.

With that 1.41 GAA at home, Hart has saved over 16 more goals than the average goaltender would when we look at goals saved above average. His 16.29 GSAA is almost four goals better than Elvis Merzlikins behind him. Hart’s 26 goals given up at home is the seventh-fewest in the league. These are just his stats at 5v5.

Taking a quick look at his play at all strengths, the numbers still prove he’s a top goaltender at home no matter the situation. To give context once again, his GAA is 1.64 at all strengths. His GSAA is 20.26. So overall, Hart is saving about twenty more goals at home than the average goaltender. Diving even deeper, we can look at some of Hart’s percentages per 60 minutes.

Going back to just 5v5 play, Hart is making about 27.18 Saves/60 while facing about 28.6 Shots Against/60. Looking at his numbers against the average goaltender, Hart is stopping just under a goal per game more with a GSAA/60 of 0.89. At all strengths, he has 26.61 Saves/60 while facing 28.25 Shots Against/60. His GSAA/60 barely dips down as it sits at 0.88.

All of these stats will be even more vital if the Flyers can grab home-ice advantage in the playoffs. They have proven time and time again that the Wells Fargo Center is a hard place for opponents to play. And with Carter Hart in net, they are an even tougher force to deal with.