The Philadelphia Flyers are not making a qualifying offer to goaltender Carter Hart. The goaltender will now be an unrestricted free agent on Monday and will no longer be part of the Flyers organization. This news ends any speculation as to what the team would do regarding Hart and his contractual status.
While the team has until 5:00 p.m. ET to make qualifying offers to their restricted free agents, to retain their NHL rights, word got out before the deadline that the Flyers will not be sending one to Hart.
As reported Saturday night, the National Hockey League and the NHL Players’ Association made no rule changes or exceptions regarding the contract status and NHL rights for the five players from Team Canada’s 2018 World Junior team who have been charged with sexual assault and are awaiting trial. Obviously one of the five is goaltender Carter Hart whose contract expired as of June 30. Had the Flyers qualified Hart and he accepted the contract offer — as he would have due to having zero negotiation power while in his situation — it would have been for one year with a cap hit of $4.479 million.
Hart was charged with sexual assault back in January.
Hart, 25, made 31 appearances in his rookie season for the Flyers and went 16-13-1 in 2018-19. Hart appeared in 227 games for Philadelphia with a record just above .500 (96-93-29) and a save percentage of .906 over six seasons. Hart was granted an “indefinite leave of absence” from the Flyers in late January prior to charges being laid. His last appearance for Philadelphia was in a 7-4 loss to Colorado on Jan. 20 where he allowed 5 goals on 15 shots and was replaced by Sam Ersson in the third period.
The Flyers have other restricted free agents they need to send qualifying offers to before the 5:00 p.m. deadline. Defensemen Yegor Zamula, Mason Millman, and Will Zmolek, and forward Bobby Brink are the pending restricted free agents who need to get qualified before potential further contract negotiations into the summer.
