Robin Lehner is an experienced goaltender with 11 years of NHL experience. He’s with Vegas now, and played some playoff games this past season as the #2 behind Marc-Andre Fleury (who was traded this offseason).

Thursday, he did an AMA (ask me anything) on Twitter, and was asked about Carter Hart, which resulted in a somewhat interesting answer:

A shot at Alain Vigneault.

It’s not the first time we’ve heard about AV being an old school/no nonsense kind of guy, but it always means more coming directly from a player, especially one commenting on a specific position. Lehner never played for Vigneault, but you’d still put a lot of stock into what he has to say.

We had chalked up Hart’s recent struggles to the porous defense in front of him, and a natural regression for a young player, but maybe AV grates on him. Hard to say. Only Carter Hart can answer that question. But it’s obvious that younger players are different these days, and sometimes the tough love approach doesn’t work. Sometimes you need to be empathetic and pragmatic and find a different way to push buttons and motivate.


It’s probably the biggest storyline of the Flyers’ upcoming season. Chuck Fletcher shook things up and re-worked the defense, but Hart is expected to be a franchise goaltender, and if he looks like 2020-2021 Carter Hart out there, then woof. What then? Hopefully we don’t find out.