Who Will Backup Carter Hart in 2022-23?

Carter Hart is the future of this franchise. That’s what we’ve been told. That’s what we’ve been lead to believe. And for many of us, that’s what we’ve seen. The Flyers’ 24 year old phenom has played fairly well up to this point. And I say that because he has had a shaky, less than dependable defense in front of him. He has also ended two seasons with injuries.

Which brings us to the question, “Who will be Hart’s backup this season?” Martin Jones was his backup last season, and did a pretty decent job of it, all things considered. But, he left to go to Seattle. Hart will miss his veteran leadership and mentoring. So, with him gone, now what?

If we go all the way back to June, it looked as if the backup job would be won in a training camp battle between Felix Sandstrom and Ivan Fedotov. But, a funny thing happened. Fedotov was arrested and detained for failure to report for duty in the Russian military. He is currently on trial, somewhere in Russia as he is being held at a military base. Not much is known after that.

So, it would appear that Sandstrom has the job. He played in five games last year, of which the Flyers won none. However, he posted a .910 save percentage with a 3.23 GAA. Those aren’t terrible numbers when you consider the fact that that was the end of the season when Hart was shut down and the team had pretty much packed it up and let the prospects play. So, all indications are that it is his job to lose for right now.

But, what if Hart gets hurt? What if Sandstrom gets hurt? I know that sounds kind of outlandish, but remember the season of 2018-19? That season, we had, as our backstops, Hart, Brian Elliott, Anthony Stolarz, Calvin Pickard, Michal Neuvirth, Cam Talbot, Alex Lyon, and Mike McKenna. Yikes!

So, some of this depends on if Fedotov is able to get out of Russia. If he can’t, then we have to look to the AHL roster and call someone up. Currently, the Phantoms have Pat Nagle, Samuel Errson, and Darion Hanson on their roster. It is possible one of these may have to be called up to fill in.

Likewise what about the free agent market? This will get a little tricky because of the salary cap issues facing the Flyers right now. But if some Flyer goes on long term injured reserve and opens up cap space, there are a couple options. Braden Holtby is still a free agent, but could end up retiring due to a lower body injury that may sideline him the entire upcoming season. After that, the next best item out there is Cory Schneider.

Let’s hope the Flyers never get to this point, but as we saw last year, health is important. A team is only as good as its goalie situation. Having a reliable backup is a godsend. While Hart is really good, he’s not Superman. He’s going to need to take some breaks. He can’t play all 82 games by himself. Let’s hope that the Flyers can find a good backup to give him rest. Also, we need that backup to be ready to go just in case.