Carter Hart is the only untouchable Flyers player
Over the past couple of days, rumors have been thrown around on the internet about the Flyers working hard to bring Seth Jones to Philadelphia. Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman recently confirmed these rumors in his most recent 31 thoughts piece. This has opened up the can of worms that is Twitter mock trade proposals, not just from Philadelphia fans but from Columbus fans as well. One proposal was brought up by the Twitter account @UKCBJFans that struck a nerve with some Flyers fans online.
Flyers fans did not like that Joel Farabee was involved in this proposal; some even said Farabee is one of the team’s untouchable players.
I am here to let everyone know that Joel Farabee is NOT untouchable and that the only untouchable player in the entire Flyers organization (AHL and NHL) is Carter Hart.
When looking at this Flyers team, over the past few years there has been a lack of urgency to change and improve the team unless it is a last-second trade deadline move for late-round draft picks (Wayne Simmonds, Michael Raffl, Erik Gustafsson) or low depth players that have little to no impact on the game (Derek Grant, Nate Thompson). The last major trade that the Flyers have been involved in is when they traded Brayden Schenn to the St. Louis Blues for Jori Lehteta (yikes) and the two first-round picks that became Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost. That trade took place in June of 2017, four years ago.
Since then, the Flyers front office has held onto all the “high level” prospects in the AHL and NHL for the past four years, trading a grand total of zero of them to try and improve the team. With many big names on the trade block this offseason, the word untouchable has been thrown around more than it should.
When looking at the Flyers roster, almost every player on the roster is below the skill level of two of the biggest names on the trade block this offseason in Jack Eichel and Matthew Tkachuk. If someone were to ask a person from Buffalo if they would trade Joel Farabee for Jack Eichel straight up, almost everyone from Buffalo would laugh. The same result would happen in Calgary if Tkachuk and Farabee were the two names in question. A majority of Flyers fans, however, would do those two trades without a question. That is the difference between untouchable and high trade value. Joel Farabee might have the highest trade value on the team, but he is not untouchable. Everyone is always available for the right price… except one.
Carter Hart
The Flyers goalie history is well known, not just by Flyers fans but NHL fans too. Since Ron Hextall last played for the Flyers in 1999, they have had 28 different starting goaltenders in the last 21 seasons. Only two goaltenders have lasted in this organization longer than five seasons.
With the never-ending revolving door of goaltenders entering and exiting Philadelphia’s pipes, the Flyers have finally seemed to find the team’s long-term solution in net with Hart. Yes after a down season some have been hard on the young goaltender, but when looking at the big picture it is easy to see why there is hope that Hart is the Flyers goalie for the long term.
He showed brilliance from 2018-2020 posting a .917 and .914 sv% in his first two years in the NHL. He outdueled Carey Price in the 2020 playoffs and was the sole reason the Flyers didn’t get swept by the Islanders in the second round that year. He did not have a losing record as a goaltender until this season (which with a mediocre Flyers team in front of him is nothing short of a miracle). And even this season when he took a week off to work out the problems he had had, he came back and looked rejuvenated.
Hart was one of the favorites for the Vezina Trophy at the beginning of the 2021 season, which is an honor that doesn’t get thrown around a lot. In just two seasons people were already calling him one of the future greats in this game.
With how much pressure Philadelphia fans and the media puts on the goaltenders that come through this city, and the legacies of Bernie Parent and Ron Hextall that the goalies have to live up to, there is no reason that Hart should be let go for any purpose.
When looking at the goaltenders that made the NHL’s final four this season, we see former Hart and Vezina Trophy winner Carey Price, this season’s Vezina Trophy winner Marc Andre Fleury, this season’s Vezina runner up Andrei Vasilevskiy, and this season’s five place Vezina trophy finisher Semyon Varlamov. Even going back to the last eight teams left there were names such as Tuukka Rask, Phillip Gubauer, and Connor Hellebyuck playing.
Goaltending is everything in this league.
Hart is still 22 years young and still on a path to become one of the best goalies in the league. If the Flyers can put a reasonable defense in front of him over the next couple of seasons to reduce the workload, he can easily return to his rookie and sophomore season shine, and even develop into a better goalie than what we’ve already seen from him.
If Flyers fans had the choice of getting rid of Hart for unimaginable offensive talent, and leave the net open for a worse goaltender to take place… well, we have already seen that happen in Philadelphia with Ilya Bryzgalov and I doubt Flyers fans want to go down that path again. A team can have a high-powered offense, have a solid defense, but if they don’t have a reliable goalie in this league, they won’t get very far. Making Hart the only untouchable in a world where everyone is available at the right price seems like a better option than any trade that is possible involving the young star in the making.