The Philadelphia Flyers announced earlier today that they have placed goaltender Carter Hart on injured reserve with an upper-body injury retroactively.
With the roster freeze coming to an end, the Christmas break leading into NHL action again, and with John Tortorella saying yesterday that Hart felt fine, the announcement shouldn’t come as a surprise as the initial blow he took looked to have hit him in the head.
The play we’re referring to occurred in their final game before the break against the Carolina Hurricanes, where Rasmus Ristolainen shoved Seth Jarvis straight into Hart, not only injuring his goaltender but allowing Jesperi Kotkaniemi to score the eventual game-winning goal unmarked and untouched.
The corresponding move will have the Flyers without their star goaltender, one of the remaining pillars keeping the infrastructure standing, for a week or so and will have to roll with a tandem of Felix Sandström and Samuel Ersson.
Playing on one of the worst teams in hockey, Hart has been able to post pretty good numbers all things considered as he sits with a 10-11-6 record with a .911 SV% and a 2.89 GAA. Analytically, he has a .883 SV% on scoring chances and a .816 SV% on high-danger scoring chances. He has already faced 22 shorthanded shots, 376 scoring chances, and 152 high-danger chances this season and isn’t too far off from career-highs in those statistical categories – 27 games in, which also leads the NHL by the way.
As for Sandström and Ersson, they have a combined 15 games of NHL experience with the former holding onto 14 of those. Sandström was 0-4-1 with a .910 SV% and a 3.23 GAA last year in 5 appearances, while going 1-6-1 with a .888 SV% and a 3.37 GAA in 9 games this season. As for Ersson, he started and finished their last game against Carolina but was pulled after allowing 5 goals on 22 shots. Unfortunately he was thrown to the wolves in his NHL debut as the Flyers were abhorrent defensively, misreading plays, breaking down in their own zone, and turning it over in high danger areas.
Crossing Broad’s Anthony SanFilippo tweeted soon after everyone noticed that Carter Hart was not only at the Flyers practice today but was an active participant. He said that Hart suffered a mild concussion during their loss to the Hurricanes and would not be joining the team on their 3-game road trip as a precautionary measure.
The earliest he could return between the pipes would be on the 5th of January against the Arizona Coyotes. However amidst all the hoopla was a mass of confusion because even though he was diagnosed with a mild concussion, he was okay to practice, and therefore deemed okay to travel on the upcoming road trip.
The confusion grew but at the same time was mended by John Tortorella who confirmed after practice that Hart is currently in concussion protocol but was feeling good enough to partake in practice, which in all reality is still a very odd decision considering the severity of concussions around not just the NHL, but sports in general.
He mentioned that there is a chance he suits up against the Kings on Saturday but he needs to be cleared to partake. He will travel with the team and the idea is that if all goes well – which they are seemingly of the mind that all will be well – he will be able to suit up for both the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks games. For now, Samuel Ersson is in line to start tomorrow’s tilt against the San Jose Sharks.
The Flyers return to the ice at 10:30pm tomorrow night against the Sharks before taking on the Los Angeles Kings in a matinee of sorts on Saturday, and then they’ll finish off the road trip against the Anaheim Ducks on Monday night.
As it stands within Flyerdom, Hart should be okay to play in at least one of these games, maybe two. However, diagnosing injuries haven’t been their forte for years, so it’s a waiting game for the time being.
