Dissecting Carter Hart’s New Contract

Photo Courtesy of Len Redkoles/NHLI via Getty Images

An important piece of off-season business was tied up yesterday. The Philadelphia Flyers signed restricted free agent goaltender Carter Hart to a new contract. The young netminder was coming off of his entry level contract which was only valued at 925,000 thousand dollars AAV (average annual value). Due to this and Hart’s performances over the last three seasons it’s been expected that the goalie would receive a raise in relation to his next contract signed with the Flyers. As anticipated that was exactly what occurred as Hart was signed to a three year deal worth $11.93 million total that carries a $3.979 million a year cap hit for the next three seasons by the Flyers. Effectively, this contract walks Hart back into restricted free agent status once the deal is complete in three seasons. Meaning the Flyers would still retain the promising goaltender’s contract rights and the exclusivity to signing Hart. Aside from another team potentially signing the goalie to an offer sheet but the likelihood of that is very rare (FYI an offer sheet is a construct another team can use to sign other clubs restricted free agents. It is done so by paying compensation to a team through draft picks based on the level of the salary offered within the proposed contract for the player this team is attempting to acquire. Also this is contingent on the player actually signing the offer sheet and the team they belong to choosing not to match the offer sheet proposed by the other team). It was crucial for the Flyers to ensure they had Hart locked up to a reasonable deal for the next few years with the team having to re-sign Sean Couturier and Claude Giroux next off-season. Although, it remains to be seen if Hart will live up to the expectations of the new contract signed.

“It definitely feels good to get the deal out of the way and now just look forward to a clean slate next year. Summer has been good. Got a lot of training in so far and still got a little bit left. Summer’s been good. I’m really looking forward to starting here soon. Get back to playing in front of our fanbase, one of the best in the NHL. I can’t wait for opening night. It’ll be a sold-out stadium again. How loud our stadium is and how loud they’re going to be on opening night, it’s going to be wild. We’re all looking forward to it.” – Carter Hart

When looking at the contract and the value of it in opposition with Carter Hart’s worth as a goaltender the key question at play is if the netminder is worth the 3.79 million dollars a year against the Flyers salary cap that he was signed for? In short, I would say yes though time will obviously dictate if that is indeed the case. The first thing that must be examined to determine whether or not Hart is worth the money being paid allocated against the salary cap is the goaltender’s save percentage and goals against average (gaa). In his first NHL season Hart posted an impressive .917 % save percentage and a 2.83 gaa in 31 games played, the following season the promising goaltender continued his great play and put up a save percentage of .914 % and a 2.42 gaa in 43 games played and, this past season Hart struggled mightily as his save percentage fell to .877 % with a goals against average of 3.67 in 27 games played (per hockey-reference.com). 

Evidently, the stats provided above exhibit two things, that at age 20 and 21 in his first two NHL seasons Hart was one of the best goalies in the league. As a rookie the netminder had a save percentage better than this list of netminders, Marc-Andre Fleury, Juuse Saros, Sergei Bobrovsky, Connor Hellebuyck, Jakob Markstrom, Tuukka Rask and Semyon Varlamov, while in his sophomore season Hart’s save percentage was better than these goalies, Jordan Binnington, Marc Andre Fleury, Carey Price, Frederick Andersen, Henrik Lundqvist, John Gibson and Sergei Bobrovsky (per hockey-reference.com). Along with this Hart also was 9th best in goals against average amongst all other goaltenders in the NHL in his sophomore season with a 2.42 gaa (per hockey-reference.com). It’s been exemplified above that Carter Hart at points in his career so far to date has been among elite company statistically in regards to both save percentage and goals against average in his first two seasons in the league. The netminder has even had better stats than some of his goaltending counterparts that could be considered all time greats so it’s quite clear that he has the capability to perform at a very high level. What this past season revealed to us however, is that he also showed the ability to falter and struggle as he had the worst save percentage and goals against average in the league in terms of starting goaltenders. So it seems there are two polar opposites to Carter Hart and his game through the statistics. At a certain end of the spectrum he seems to be one of the most promising young goaltenders in the NHL and on the other hand he was quite arguably the worst goalie in the NHL looking at the stats from the 2020-2021 season. Objectively speaking, it would be wise to assume that Hart is somewhere in between these two ends and likely a lot closer to how he performed as a goalie in both the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 season. Too add on, the pandemic and the inability for goaltenders to practice as often due to the lack of time available between games as a result of last season’s shortened schedule likely had a negative effect on Hart this season and his ability to address weaknesses within his technique. Ultimately, it could be assumed that the return to a normal NHL schedule this upcoming season, as well as, the ability to practice normally and engage in his usual routines in regards to his game will allow Hart to rebound and find the form from his first two seasons in the league. 

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Overall, Carter Hart’s contract is one that is fair for both the Flyers and the player. This happens to be the case because as shown above Hart had great stats in his first two seasons in the NHL at only ages 20 and 21. Despite the young netminder having a dismal season in 2020-2021 those stats do only represent 27 games of his career versus 74 games where Hart has some of the best goaltending stats in the NHL. In light of this, the sample size for Hart showing he is a good goaltender in this league far outweighs the sample of games showing he is one of the worst goaltenders in the league. Not to mention, the fact that this past season in general the Flyers allowed 197 goals against (per hockey-reference.com) for the worst in the entire NHL season. Additionally, the team allowed on average 3.52 goals against per game (per hockey-reference.com) which was also the worst in the league this season. When a team performs so poorly in terms of defensive play and allowing goals it does not solely fall on the goaltender but also the team’s defensive play as a whole and defensive schemes. Through the off-season additions made on the defensive end of the ice with Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher bringing in the likes of Ryan Ellis, Rasmus Ristolainen and Keith Yandle it can be assumed that the Flyers defensive play as a team should drastically improve this upcoming season, as well as, their goals against allowed per game. Adding such players will further solidify the defensive end of the ice and in turn allow for Carter Hart to see less high danger scoring chances against. Which would directly correlate with Hart having a turn around season in the 2021-2022 season ahead. With a veteran defensive core in front of him and the motivation to improve his game after the worst season of his career I do expect Carter Hart to perform much closer to the stats shown in his first two seasons instead of last season. Considering this, one could see how Hart out performs the contract signed yesterday and provides value far larger than his 3.97 million dollar cap hit is currently paying him. Goaltending is a tricky position and difficult to project however, so anything can occur but all signs seem to be indicating that Carter Hart is going to rebound from his poor season in 2020-2021. Only time will tell if this return to form is something that does actually occur and continues for the duration of the three year deal or if the young goaltender begins showing signs of consistency issues throughout the contract.