Carter Hart had one of those games Tuesday against Vegas that puts him on a few short lists of incredible accomplishments.

He made 47 saves in a 2-1 victory for the Flyers, marking just their second winning streak of two games since the calendar flipped to 2022. The Flyers have not won three straight (a season high) since Dec. 10-14.

But back to Hart –

His 47 saves is a career-best for him, which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise because it’s not every day that a goalie faces 48 shots in a regular season hockey game, never mind in regulation.

But it was so much more:

  • It was the most saves by a Flyers goalie since Brian Elliott made 48 stops in an overtime loss in Pittsburgh in 2017.
  • The 47 saves ties for ninth all-time by a Flyers goalie, and was one of only eight to occur in regulation time.
  • It was the most saves in regulation by a Flyers goalie since Antero Niittymaki also made 47 saves in a win against Washington in 2008.
  • Those 47 saves by Niittymaki were a franchise record for most saves in a home regular season game. Hart tied it.
  • Hart became the third goalie in franchise history to have at least 47 saves and allow one goal or fewer, joining Niittymaki in 2008 and Darren Jensen, who had a 48-save shutout in St. Louis in 1986.
  • He also joined Niittymaki (twice) and Jensen on the list of goalies who won games while making this many saves.

Because we all love lists, here are all the regular season games in which a Flyers goalie made at least 47 saves:

  1. Jan. 5, 2008 – Antero Niittymaki – 54 saves – at Toronto – 3-2 Win
  2. Apr. 14, 1994 – Dominic Roussel – 52 saves – at New York Rangers – 2-2 Tie
  3. Mar. 11, 2008 – Martin Biron – 51 saves – at Toronto – 3-4 Loss (OT)
  4. Oct. 28, 1972 – Doug Favell – 51 saves – at Minnesota (North Stars) – 2-4 Loss
  5. Mar. 22, 2016 – Steve Mason – 51 saves – at Columbus – 2-3 Loss (SO)
  6. Jan. 22, 1970 – Bernie Parent – 51 saves – at Boston – 3-3 Tie
  7. Jan. 13, 1977 – Bernie Parent – 49 saves – at Montreal – 4-6 Loss
  8. Jan. 25, 1986 – Darren Jensen – 48 saves – at St. Louis – 1-0 Win
  9. Nov. 27, 2017 – Brian Elliott – 48 saves – at Pittsburgh – 4-5 Loss (OT)
  10. Mar. 25, 1988 – Mark LaForest – 47 saves – at Wasahington – 3-5 Loss
  11. Dec. 20, 2008 – Antero Niittymaki – 47 saves – vs. Washington – 7-1 Win
  12. March 8, 2022 – Carter Hart 47 saves – vs. Vegas – 2-1 Win

The Flyers are 4-3-5 in games in which their goalie has to make 47 or more saves.

All this shows just how locked in Hart was against the Knights:

I’m not a big “expected goals” guy. But putting a virtuoso performance by a goalie into this perspective definitely makes sense to me.

And it’s not the first time Hart’s done this to the Knights either. The Flyers snapped their first 10-game winless streak in Vegas in January where Hart was sensational and made 41 saves.

This time, he bested himself.

There’s no doubt Hart is a high volume goalie – meaning the more shots he faces the better he tends to play, and the Golden Knights are a high volume team – meaning they shoot from anywhere and everywhere. So, in many ways, for Hart, playing a team like Vegas is ideal.

However, you never want your goalie to be under siege like Hart was Tuesday, but if he’s going to play that well…

“He was a battler tonight,” said interim coach Mike Yeo. “He was a competitor… The way he was tracking the puck and keeping himself in position. He was ready to make the next play off of that. Well-deserved win tonight for him, no question.”

When this season mercifully ends in 52 days, (yes, I’m counting), and the Flyers brass starts to pick through the rubble of a lost season, one of the shiny coins they will find buried in the soot will be the season Hart had.

It won’t be flashy numbers. It won’t be buoyed by a bunch of style points.

But, what it will be is a huge sigh of relief, that yes, their franchise goalie is back, and on track to be as good as they once thought he would be.

It was touch and go after the incredible fall Hart experienced after the highs of the 2019-2020 season to the incredible lows of the 2020-2021 season that had him getting emotional in press conferences wondering what had happened to his game and his love of the sport.

This season, he’s been the Flyers best player. He has to be the recipient of the Bobby Clarke trophy as team MVP. There’s no one else who is close.

Currently, among the 28 goalies in the NHL who have started at least 27 games (roughly 50% of the season), Hart ranks 17th in goals against average (2.88) and 14th in save percentage (.913). Considering the Flyers have the sixth-worst record in the NHL, those numbers are pretty impressive.

Three of the four goalies directly in front of him in the save percentage rankings are Jack Campbell (TOR), Sergei Bobrovsky (FLA) and Darcy Kuemper (COL). Those guys are only the starting goalies for three of the top five teams in the league points-wise.

So, you could imagine, if this were a different season, with a different team in front of him, how much praise would be heaped on Hart right now, as a better team in front of him would likely have him in the top 10 in both chief goaltending categories.

Instead, he’s playing really well in obscurity.

Another thing about Hart this season that is quite important for the Flyers going forward is, he is also quietly proving he can handle a larger work load. He’s on pace to start 52 games for the Flyers this season, and probably would have had even more were it not for successive bouts with the flu and COVID-19 earlier this season and missing a couple games with a minor eye infection more recently.

With the idea that Hart can start between 55-60 games, the Flyers won’t have to overspend for a veteran backup and can rely on in-house candidates to fill that role, creating even more cap space for the team to devote to skaters.

In the end, the 2021-22 season won’t be looked back upon fondly, but it very well could be the one where the Flyers knew, for sure, they have the guy they need between the pipes for years to come.

Latest on the trade front – is Claude Giroux hurting his own trade value?

There’s not much new news brewing in trade central for the Flyers. That could be a sign that something is imminent, or that teams have seen enough and it’s time to kick off the negotiation phase with just 12 days until the trade deadline.

There were still seven scouts at the Flyers-Knights matchup, and it included Colorado and Florida, who appear to be the frontrunners in the Giroux chase. The Panthers even dispatched Senior Advisor and longtime NHL executive Rick Dudley to watch the game.

However, one has to wonder if interest in Giroux is waning a little bit – at least at the price tag that he has on him at the moment?

Ever since Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher said at his Jan. 26 press conference that he was in contact with Giroux’s agent Pat Brisson and that they would stay in communication over the next couple months to see if a trade would make sense, Giroux has stopped being productive.

Up until that press conference, Giroux was the Flyers best player. He had 34 points in 40 games, leading the team.

Since then, he has played 13 games, and has just six points (2G, 4A).

Teams who would be interested in Giroux would want him for second line scoring, but also for his prowess on the power play, where he has been among the best in the sport in his career.

However Giroux has just one power play point in his last 15 games.

He’s still winning faceoffs at a ridiculous clip (62.2 percent in the last 13 games), but aside from that, there’s starting to be some questions as to what his actual value is.

Sure, teams are still interested – why wouldn’t you be – but maybe not at the price that the Flyers want, which seems to be a first round pick, an NHL player and a prospect.

There is some growing concern around the NHL that Giroux might be a guy who, once he goes to a new team, would be a little homesick for Philadelphia. There’s no doubt it will be tough moving away from his family for what could be four months – he wasn’t fond of it when he was in the bubble in Toronto due to COVID a couple summers ago, so you can’t imagine he would want to do it again, for a longer period this time.

Yeo even said it after practice on Monday:

“A guy like G [Giroux], you can tell how much it’s weighing on him,” Yeo said. “And there’s other guys, obviously, that they’re aware of what’s going on. They know if their name’s in the mix or if there’s rumors or whatever the case is. They’re human beings. You have to remember, most of these guys that we’re talking about have families, have kids, have homes here.

“All you can do is try to be supportive. Try to encourage them, get them focused on tonight’s game and not think about the big picture. But it’s not an easy thing to do, that’s for sure.”

Does this mean Giroux won’t be traded? Not at all. I’m still very confident it will happen. But, might his recent drop off in scoring and playing through the the difficulty of the waiting game impact his value? Maybe.

Chuck Fletcher may have to settle for less than he thought he would initially in a Giroux trade.

Meanwhile, Justin Braun is becoming more of a hot commodity.

Braun scored the game winning goal against Vegas, matching a career-best five goals this season:

But teams aren’t looking at Braun because of his offense. No, Braun has been as steady as they come this season on defense and one of the lone bright spots for the Flyers, especially since he was thrust into a top pair role most of the season alongside the enigma that is Ivan Provorov.

Braun will certainly net the Flyers at least a third round draft pick. That’s a given. But might teams in need of a reliable, veteran, right-handed, defenseman with playoff experience over pay for that much-needed commodity?

That’s a very real possibility as well.

Braun might be the surprise of the deadline in that he might he get you more value than you thought compared to any other player traded.

And I would think teams like Vegas, Florida, Toronto and Carolina would especially be interested in his services.

Goalie conundrum?

Wait a second, didn’t we just finish praising Carter Hart? What conundrum could have arisen in a couple hundred words?

The good news about how Hart is playing, as I mentioned, is they won’t need to spend money on a veteran backup next season. That’s because the Flyers believe in Hart and also they have a wealth of depth at the position and believe their next backup goalie can come from within.

Fletcher mentioned recently about how that’s their deepest position in the organization, and all but said there’s a chance at a four-way battle over the summer and into training camp for the backup spot.

Those four goalies would be Felix Sandstrom, Ivan Fedotov, Samuel Ersson and Kirill Ustimenko.

Sandstrom, 25, a 2015 third round pick, played one game for the Flyers earlier this season and played well, making 43 saves in an 3-2 overtime loss to San Jose. He has played 29 games with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the AHL, and not been overly impressive. The Phantoms aren’t a very good team, so you take the numbers with a little bit of a grain of salt, but, His 3.09 GAA and his .893 save percentage don’t really excite you.

Not to mention, Sandstrom became a pending Group 6 unrestricted free agent Tuesday.

It’s a convoluted process, but basically it means that Sandstrom can become an unrestricted free agent sooner than most because his NHL team hasn’t really given him an opportunity at the highest level to play.

Sometimes, injuries are a factor in that as well – as evidenced by Sam Morin also earning Group 6 status this season – but that’s not the case with Sandstrom.

If you recall, he was leaving the Flyers to go and sign in Finland last summer, before changing his mind a day later and re-signing with the Flyers, but now that he’s Group 6, he can walk away and sign with any NHL team, meaning he might not be in that backup mix after all.

Then there’s Ivan Fedotov, also 25, who was a seventh round pick in that same 2015 draft.

Fedotov has been playing in the KHL since he was drafted by the Flyers, and had a strong season for CSKA Moscow (2.00 GAA, .919 SvPct) and has played four strong playoff games so far (4-0, 1.36, .954). He also shined for the Russian Olympic team in four starts at the 2022 games.

His contract is up after this season for Moscow and he has hinted that he wants to come to North America next season.

That was all well and good until Russia invaded Ukraine. Now there are sanctions galore, including the NHL suspending it’s relationship with the KHL and Russian hockey agents.

Fortunately for Fedotov, he does have North American representation (CAA), so he can negotiate a contract with the Flyers, but there’s no guarantee that he will be allowed to come here and get a work visa considering what is going on in the world.

I asked Chuck Fletcher about this and he said that he really didn’t know what the possibilities were for Fedotov now because of the conflict in Ukraine. “It’s a crazy world right now,” he said.

The Flyers also have another, young Russian goalie prospect in Alexei Kolosov. Kolosov, 20, was drafted in the third round of the 2021 draft. He is also playing in the KHL. This was his first full season, playing for Minsk Dynamo, and he didn’t have as impressive numbers as Fedotov, but still got his team to the playoffs, where they are currently on the brink of elimination.

Kolosov isn’t ready to come over to North America yet, so the Flyers have some time with him and can hope things get better with Russia before they have to worry about bringing him over.

That leaves Ersson and Ustimenko.

Ustimenko, 23, a Belarussian, is already in North America. A third round pick in 2017, he actually dressed in a game for the Flyers this season, but did not play. Ustimenko has spent most of his season in the ECHL with the Reading Royals, but has also dealt with injuries that have limited his playing time. Ustimenko did play seven games for the Phantoms and looked much better than Sandstrom with a 2.39 GAA and a .917 SvPct., but that is a small sample. The Flyers may want him to play a full season in the AHL before considering him as a potential full-time back up.

Ersson, 22, a fifth round pick in 2018, may be the guy that they like best long-term, but he too has been felled by injuries this season, playing just five games for the Phantoms.

If the Flyers can get him here, Fedotov may be the best candidate to be Hart’s backup in 2022-23, but if not, will Sandstrom come back.. again? Or can either Ustimenko or Ersson shake off mostly lost seasons to injury and step up to the next level?

Time will tell.

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