The Hart of this Flyers team is pumping

Carter Hart has been on fire this season so far. He has looked like the Hart from 2019-2020 who battled for position, trying to see the puck and giving the Flyers chances to win games. We didn’t see this Hart a lot last season, but there was a lot of inside and outside factors that seemed to not only affect his game but his mental state as well.

At the end of last season, I talked a lot about Hart and where he was sitting going into his third season

Coming into this season, a lot of “experts” believed Hart was cooked and that it was time for the Flyers to move on and find a new starting goaltender. These “experts” must’ve thought goalies grow on trees and that it is very simple to find one to come in and start right away. It was hard enough to find a good back up for Hart, so finding a starter over him would have been even harder.

Hart is also 23-years-old and was going through one of the toughest things anybody has to go through at his age last season. During the bubble, teammates saw each other a lot more than normal. Going into last season, the players could not hang out with each other. They could not go outside into the city or see family that didn’t already live with them.

A lot of people talk about the on ice situations and play of the athletes, but don’t do enough to ask about the mental states of these athletes. Hart had a rough go of it. Being 22 at the time, he was living alone and just parted ways with his sports psychologist. Pair that all with having the weight of carrying a team is a recipe for disaster.

At the end of the season, the players were able to go home, rest and reset. Just like batteries that need recharging, humans are very similar. The Flyers had a very short off season from the second round against the Islanders. They also didn’t upgrade the team either and relied heavily on the development of young players which ended up burning them down the road.

Luckily for Hart, Chuck Fletcher realized his mistake and really rebuilt the Flyers from the defense out. The additions of Rasmus Ristolainen, Ryan Ellis and Keith Yandle have been huge. Even Nick Seeler has been a huge upgrade over most of the blue line talent they had last season. This has been a huge help for Hart, but we can’t give the defense 100% of the credit.

Last season, Carter Hart had a 9-11-5 record. He had the lowest SV% of his career with a subpar .877% and GAA of 3.67. Even his quality start percentage was below subpar with .36%. He wasn’t playing great night in and night out and things didn’t seem to be getting better and eventually, Hart was shut down for the rest of the season.

Hart looked good in the preseason but obviously the preseason isn’t the best test for goaltenders. Most of the time you are playing young kids who have yet to make an NHL roster or vets who are trying to make the roster. Usually you don’t have a ton of tape or video on them but still, it is not playing full NHL rosters. It didn’t seem to phase Hart much this season, though.

Now, he’s played six games this season and has a record of 3-2-1. Two out of three of the losses were weird games for the Flyers. The Canucks scored three goals in the weirdest ways with one going off the backboards and off of Hart’s skate into the net. Another one he lost in his equipment. The other loss was against the Panthers. The team in front of him could not stay out of the box, but the game was also a ref short that game after one left with an injury. The final loss was in Calgary at the end of their Western Canada road trip and the team was unable to gain any traction, but Hart did his part and kept that game 1-0 until the third.

Through these six games, Hart has a .928 SV% along with a 2.33 GAA. He also has an assist currently and one shutout. So far, out of his 6 starts, Hart has 4 quality starts with a .667 QS%. Compared to last year as well, he currently has 0 really bad starts compared to eight the previous season.

Hart has been incredible through all six of his starts and has appeared to bounce back. Once Ellis and Kevin Hayes come back, it will bolster the team defense and make it even better for Hart in his end. As long as Hart continues to stand on his head, he gives this team a chance to win games night in and night out.