Now isn’t a time for feeble Flyers to not have a Hart

What do you do with a goalie like Carter Hart?

Do you let him play through it? Do you bench him? Send him on a two-week tour of practice rinks from Voorhees to the Lehigh Valley while forever Phantom Felix Sandstrom finally gets a real chance in the big-league crease?

What’s a team of Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault, his top assistant coaches, his goalie instructor and two oncall sports psychologists going to do with their top crease client?

And while they’re at it, the

Flyers might be wondering whether Hart’s teammates can offer a helping hand ... or at least lift an occasional finger along the way.

The 22-year-old goalie, unavailable on a Zoom chat Thursday night after an 8-3 defeat at the hands of the New York Rangers, isn’t working himself out of his extended slump. To wonder why is to not look at the last several games, although to be honest, what Flyers follower would want to look at them?

“We’re going to get an opportunity tomorrow to have our first practice in 12 days,” Vigneault deflected when asked if it was time to sit Hart, “and we’re going to get back to work. Both Brian (Elliott) and Carter are going to do like the rest of our team. We’re going to work our way through this.”

First work your way through the numerical facts: In the month of March, the Flyers have gone 4-9-1 and allowed 65 goals, an average of 4.64 per game, including 17 in two meetings with the Rangers.

For a while they were at least hanging in offensively, but over the last six games, the Flyers have scored 12 times, averaging two per ... and that’s with the other team usually up by a ton on the scoreboard and not exactly digging in defensively.

In their latest ignominy, not coincidentally coming against the New York Rangers, the

MATT SLOCUM — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Flyers goalie Carter Hart leaves the ice hastily past captain Claude Giroux after being pulled from his latest disastrous performance, an 8-3 loss to the New York Rangers Thursday night.