To keep winning, Flyers need only to listen to their Hart
The popular theory would be that the Flyers’ ongoing late-season splurge is a direct result of goalie Carter Hart already starting to come into his own, which isn’t entirely true but also wouldn’t be idle (or goalie idol) speculation.
Hart, after all, is now 19-2-2 with a 1.64 goalsagainst average and .942 saves percentage in 23 games at the Wells Fargo Center this season.
Um, we’ll get to his road numbers another day ... but know that they aren’t as bad as they had been.
Either way, Hart continues to shine, saving 28 shots in his latest standout performance, a 4-1 home victory over the Carolina Hurricanes Thursday.
As usual, his post-game posture was stoic, but in an upbeat kind of way.
“Tonight, there was another strong team, a Metro (divisional) opponent,” Hart said after the Flyers had enough left following an eye-opening 5-2 win in Washington the night before to quell the ‘Canes, too. “From here on in, all these games matter. You just have to take things one game at a time. Tonight, we came out hard and put out a really good effort.”
He may not have the laughing loose lips of, say, a Marty Brodeur, or even the cocksure attitude once flashed by a kid named Roberto Luongo. So be it. For Hart is every bit a sincere team player, outwardly and inwardly. It is his greatest strength, a player already showing an innate (but likely well-drilled) discipline of bracing for the onice highs and sailing above the emotional lows, always underscoring his play with a team-first bend.
“It just shows how dialed in everybody is right now,” Hart said in further describing the Thursday victory. “Everybody is chipping in. We have all four lines rolling and all three D pairs playing really good hockey right now. I think that is huge.”
No matter the result, rare is the game day when Hart doesn’t think all his teammates’ play was huge. Yet when gazing at the past two months, who’s going to think he’s doing anything but telling an obvious truth?
Of course Carter Hart has been playing superb hockey as the Flyers have gone from 10th best in the East to the top of the Metropolitan Division as they prepare to take on the Buffalo Sabres Saturday night at WFC.
Then again, backup goalie Brian Elliott has been playing like a successful starter, too, which is what he’s been for the better portion of his career. The Flyers goaltending, long the subject of derision, criticism and general jokemaking, is said to be a primary strength now that they’ve ripped off eight straight wins and are no longer hoping to make the playoffs, but rather, are striving to earn at the very least, home ice advantage in the first round or beyond.
The last time the Flyers won a playoff series was in 2012.
So while that historical fact might tell you to cool the jets of expectation, it doesn’t begin to address everything this Flyers team has going for it.
Head-spinning win streaks aside, this club had shown a resiliency all season long, putting together a series of mini-win streaks while never allowing itself to spin out of control after two or three losses in a row. As a result, the Flyers were running at a standings pace ahead of most recent seasons, at least they were until an awful 1-4-1 road trip after Christmas had the naysayers waking up to start their annual smh sessions.
Then came the current run of 18-5-1 and, well, the only head-shaking going on is coming from the Flyers’ opposition. This despite the club going most of the year without enough forward depth.
The shortfall came via Nolan Patrick’s season-long bout with a migraine condition that simply won’t let him get back to NHL readiness, despite continued optimism that can still happen before the playoffs.
More stunning was the loss of winger Oskar Lindblom last fall when he was diagnosed with a form of bone cancer, Ewing sarcoma, and was immediately ruled out for the rest of the season.
It moved general manager Chuck Fletcher to essentially use a shuttle bus for checking line players between Allentown and Philadelphia to fill roster holes. Finally, Fletcher curbed the need for a daily Phantoms Express when he reeled in checking line centers Derek Grant and Nate Thompson at the Feb. 24 trade deadline.
While Thompson had a bit of a rough go in his first game or two for the club, Grant was good from the get-go, and is averaging a point a game here. Now he’ll have to overcome another hurdle, as
Grant’s third-line scoring mate James van Riemsdyk has come up with a broken hand that should sideline him at least for the balance of the regular season.
He was replaced Thursday by rookie Joel Farabee, who only recently had been sent back on that Phantoms shuttle.
Yet that lousy bit of bad luck hasn’t turned the Flyers’ fortunes. Not yet, anyway. They continue to win, and score at a pace that this club hasn’t produced over an extended period of time for years.
“Guys are moving their feet, making things happen and we are supporting each other, most importantly,” Scott Laughton said after the win over Carolina. “Obviously, you don’t want to lose a guy like JVR, he’s a really good player and a really good player in this league for a while. I think he’s a pretty under-rated passer and can put the puck in the net. You need guys to step up at this time in the year and (Farabee) did a good job coming in and filling in.”
Over the eight-game winning streak, the Flyers scored four goals four times and five goals four times. Over the 24 game run of 185-1 dating to Jan. 8, the Flyers are scoring at a 3.83 goals-per-game pace, also not shabby.
And very indicative that, as good as Hart and Elliott have been, it’s much more than goaltending behind this club’s dreaming big playoff dreams these days.
Well, one dream at a time, of course.