Finally, we finish off our season grades with the goaltending and thankfully there are only three goalies to talk about instead of the 8-goalie carousel during the 2018-19 season. Along with our forwards and defensemen, the goaltending wasn’t great, but when you consider the defense and the team in front of them, it wasn’t all that bad either. Nevertheless, during the more critical junctures of the season, the goaltending didn’t help the cause (primarily Martin Jones) and Carter Hart’s “improved” season fell off the wheels with a disastrous 5-6 game stretch before an injury ended his season. Felix Sandstrom finally paving his way to the NHL roster was a bright spot and with Ivan Fedotov signing a one-year contract the other day, there looks to be some competition heading into the 2022-23 season.
Carter Hart
After a disastrous season in 2020-21, Carter Hart was looking for a bounce back season to deflect his nay-sayers and prove that he’s more like the 2019-20 version of himself. It was a season of splits but things went from good to bad to worse as the season unwinded. In his first 20 games he posted a 2.70 GAA but a very good .917 save percentage with a 7-9-4 record. In his next 20 games he went 6-10-3 with a 3.10 GAA and a middling .906 save percentage. Then in his final five games, his season peripherals took a massive hit as he finished 0-5-0 with a 4.60 GAA and a .850 save percentage. His home and road splits were very different in terms of record because he was 10-13-4 at home but 3-11-3 on the road. The save percentage wasn’t all that different at .908 vs .901, respectively, but the GAA ballooned on the road to the tune of 3.43 versus 2.98 on home ice.
To give you an idea of how well he was playing with a dismal defense in front of him, before the All-Star break he was 9-14-5 with a 2.80 GAA but altogether carried a .915 save percentage. There were plenty of games he stole for the Flyers, games he held them in for as long as he could, and some games he kept the Flyers in games they had absolutely no business in being in. To be able to carry that save percentage through 19 losses is not an easy task. The wheels fell off once they returned from the All-Star break as he finished the season going 4-10-2 with a 3.82 GAA and a .887 save percentage.
Hart was fantastic in his 13 wins as he posted a 1.61 GAA and a gaudy .953 save percentage. In his losses, he improved dramatically from his 2020-21 campaign, as he held a .877 save percentage compared to .814 the year before, but his GAA however ballooned to 4 a game. In his seven overtime losses he held a middling .903 save percentage and a 3.27 GAA.
The final five games really put a damper on his season, but things were never going to look great when you consider the team that was put in front of him. Nevertheless, Hart has a few major kinks in his game to adjust heading into next season as a lot of teams target his angles and his rebound control. A lot of the time he leaves some daylight in between his pad and the post, or he goes down a little too early which allows the shooter to shoot between his head and his shoulder, and other times he lets in backbreaking, easy-to-save goals at very inopportune moments after making amazing saves.
It wasn’t the season the Flyers wanted, it wasn’t the season Hart wanted, and it wasn’t the season we wanted to see from him either. He did as well as he could all things considered but there were some games and/or moments where you questioned his technique and tactics. The angles need to be defended better, the rebounds need to be controlled a lot better, but the Flyers need to give this man a much better and far more improved defense so that he’s not left all alone.
Goal support was hard to come by as well, as the Flyers scored 42 times in his 24 regulation losses and a combined 63 times in 31 losses altogether, including overtime. Even in his victories, the Flyers were averaging just above 3.5 goals per game, which isn’t all that great, which showcases his insane .953 save percentage and 1.61 goals against average in his victories.
If he didn’t end the season the way he did, there’s was a good chance he could’ve taken home the Pelle Lindbergh Memorial Trophy for most improved but all in all, for his efforts, Hart receives a C.
Martin Jones
The Martin Jones experiment didn’t go as planned and the Flyers will most likely let the veteran net-minder walk into free agency. The plan was for Jones to reunite with his former goalie coach from the Los Angeles Kings in Kim Dillabaugh and regain that prize-winning form, instead of his disastrous last three years in San Jose that led to his buyout.
Unlike Hart, Jones’ splits were somewhat consistent, but consistently inadequate. On home ice he was 4-6-2 with a 3.60 GAA and a .897 save percentage. He performed better on the road and played nine more games as he finished the year going 8-12-1 with a 3.32 GAA and a .902 save percentage. This was also his first NHL season without a shutout.
In his first 12 games he went 6-4-1 with a .911 save percentage and a 3.10 GAA. In his next 10 games he went 1-7-2 with a .884 save percentage and a 3.40 GAA. In his final 13 games of the season, splitting time with Hart before he was sidelined with a season-ending injury and the young Felix Sandstrom, Jones sort of steered the ship with a .901 save percentage, a nearly identical GAA at 3.31, and a 5-7-0 record. For the most part, he didn’t steer away from his seasonal stats as he stayed relatively consistent outside of the first few games to start the season, where he had a .950 save percentage in 3 games and it looked very promising albeit the small sample size.
With the Flyers signing Ivan Fedotov, seeing plenty of Felix Sandstrom at the end of the season, and undoubtedly penciling Carter Hart as the number one goalie, Jones’ time in Philadelphia has all but come to an end. He performed as most backup goalies for the Flyers have done in recent years: short bursts of fantastic play but sandwiched in between inconsistent and inadequate goaltending during the more critical junctures of the season.
Just like Hart, Jones had to deal with some terrible defending in front of him as the Flyers yielded the 4th-most shots on goal per game. For his efforts Jones receives a D.
Felix Sandstrom
Felix Sandstrom finally made his NHL debut for the Flyers this season on the 30th of December against the San Jose Sharks. He faced a franchise record 46 shots for an NHL debut but the Flyers fell in overtime 3-2. It took about three months for Sandstrom to get another start in the NHL, but with the Flyers free-falling and Carter Hart’s season coming to an end, he was called up on an emergency basis and played four more games while splitting time with Martin Jones. He went winless in his first taste of the NHL but his 177 shots against in his first five games was near the top of the list for goalies in franchise history. His save percentage was indicative of how he played as he sported a .910 even though his GAA was up there at 3.10.
It was a small sample size, but Sandstrom did well for someone playing in the NHL for the first time in their career and for that he gets a C+. There are obviously some kinks to his game that need to be addressed but expected for someone with little to no experience.
