One week from becoming eligible to agree with a team on an NHL contract, free-agent goaltender Carter Hart has started to zero in on the most attractive options for where he might attempt to reboot his career.

Hart is down to a working number of suitors, with the Carolina Hurricanes, Vegas Golden Knights and one or two other teams among those still in the mix, according to league sources.

Oct. 1 is akin to July 1 for Hart, Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton and Michael McLeod — the former Canadian World Juniors players who were cleared for reinstatement by the NHL after being found not guilty on sexual assault charges in July.

That’s when they can finalize new contracts, which will allow them to secure visas and relocate to a new city before the NHL officially registers the deals on Oct. 15. At that stage, the players are permitted to join practice and other team activities as part of the next phase of their progression toward becoming eligible to play again on Dec. 1.

Hart’s main priorities remain finding a landing spot that comes with a clear path to playing time on a team that’s set up for success.

The Golden Knights certainly fit that bill, having qualified for the playoffs in seven of their eight seasons in existence. Vegas is currently set to run with a goaltending tandem of Adin Hill and Akira Schmid, the latter of whom spent the majority of last season playing for the AHL’s Henderson Silver Knights.

Carolina also makes plenty of sense for Hart after the Canes won 151 regular-season games and five playoff series across the past three years. They accomplished that while consistently relying on goaltending options beyond alternating starters Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov, who combined to play 79 percent of the available regular-season games during that stretch and remain under contract with the team for the 2025-26 season.

Kochetkov is also coming off a season in which he posted an .898 save percentage in 47 appearances — a couple of ticks below the NHL average at the position.

The Hurricanes have also been linked to interest in McLeod, a free-agent winger. League sources told The Athletic that the organization’s views on the players changed after Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia ruled on July 24 that there was consent granted by a woman known as “E.M.,” who alleged she had been sexually assaulted by the players in a London, Ont., hotel room in June 2018.

Hart has already appeared in 227 career NHL games — more than any active goaltender his age (27) other than Jake Oettinger of the Dallas Stars. Teams are expected to begin being told they are out on Hart in the coming days, according to league sources.

Some potential suitors can already be ruled out.

The Utah Mammoth were among the teams that had internal discussions about Hart but are no longer part of the bidding process. They announced last week that goalie Connor Ingram wouldn’t participate in training camp while waiting to be placed on waivers, which will give him a fresh start with another NHL organization or in the AHL.

The Edmonton Oilers also decided not to engage with the Sherwood Park, Alberta, native, with general manager Stan Bowman telling the media that he was happy with where No. 1 goaltender Stuart Skinner is at. The Philadelphia Flyers weren’t given the chance to reunite with Hart, their second-round draft pick in 2016.

“The only comment I’ll make on that is that his representative, Judd Moldaver, has reached out and kind of told us that in light of everything that happened in the last year and a half with Carter, they felt — Carter felt — that it was better for them to look for a fresh start,” Flyers GM Daniel Briere told reporters last week. “That’s where it’s at, and it’s the only comment I’m going to make on that.”

Hart’s last professional start came for the Flyers on Jan. 20, 2024, in a 7-4 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. A few days later, he was granted an indefinite leave of absence by the team, and his contract expired on June 30 of that year.

Unlike the other players involved in the sexual assault trial, Hart elected not to continue playing in Europe while the pretrial proceedings played out. He chose instead to continue training and skating closer to home.

Hart is expected to sign a two-year contract upon his return to the NHL — leaving open the possibility of an extension as soon as summer 2026 — and will likely play a handful of AHL games on a conditioning loan in mid-November before getting his first big-league start for the new team in early December.

(Photo of Carter Hart: James Guillory / Imagn Images)