Philadelphia Flyers: Carter Hart deserves Calder recognition

Carter Hart is single-handedly dragging the Philadelphia Flyers towards a wild card chance. Does he deserve some Calder recognition?

The Philadelphia Flyers fired their general manager, nothing happened. Then they fired their head coach, nothing happened. The team had no offense, their defense was one of the worst in the league, and they had no goaltending to keep the pucks out of the net. After an injury to Anthony Stolarz, the Flyers called up their 20-year-old goaltending phenom, Carter Hart.

For years, it’s been general knowledge that goalies mature later than other players and the Flyers were trying to develop Hart in the AHL for at least another year. However, with the state of the team, they didn’t have any reason to not try it out.

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In his first NHL game, he won 3-2, making 20 saves and was the first star of the game. He had a shaky start but ever since he has been dynamite for Philadelphia Flyers. On Monday night, they lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins which marked Hart’s first loss since January 12, a calendar month ago.

During that stretch, he had a .934 save percentage and allowed an average of 2 goals a game. With him in net, the team went 8-1-1 in their last ten games and are now 8 points out of the final wild-card spot.

Getting to the playoff will be a long shot for this team, but with Carter Hart in net, it seems like anything is possible. And let’s get one thing straight. The team in front of him is not any better from before.

They are still 24th in the league in goal differential (-25) and 15th in goals per game. This team is leaky defensively and are allowing more scoring chances than ever before. But they have Hart between the pipes who keeps them in the game. No matter how many chances they give up, they can always count on Hart to be there to keep them competitive.

He is unbelievable in net. He can see right through the traffic in front and has a great secondary push whenever he is down which was witnessed first hand by the likes of Connor McDavid and Nikolay Goldobin:

In the NHL, the most important position in the goaltender. We have seen time and time again teams that are ridiculous up front but can’t buy a save. Look at how well the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks are doing all of a sudden because of a hot goaltender. Carter Hart is the most valuable player on the Philadelphia Flyers and he’s the reason why this team even has a shot at making the playoffs.

Elias Pettersson has been the runaway candidate for the Calder for the last 4 months but with the emergence of Hart, the decision becomes a little tougher. In 18 games played, Hart is tied for the longest winning streak from a goaltender before the age of 21, he has the fifth highest save percentage among NHL goaltenders who have played 15+ games (.924).

Who do you think deserves the Calder? Is half a season enough to warrant the trophy or are players who play the whole season more deserving? Let us know in the comments!