Tomorrow is October 15th and that means that ll the players involved in the Hockey Canada Scandal are allowed to sign new deals with NHL teams. They still will not be allowed to play until December 1. There have been very little rumors about these players with the exception of a few teams saying that they weren’t interested in signing any of the players…
The Flyers had interest in Carter for sure.
However, when everything went down there was a lot of hatred that came through the Internet from Philadelphia Flyers who felt like Carter had let them down. Otherwise I think he probably would’ve returned. At least it would’ve been something that they would have explored.. In the end I’m not sure if the flyers would’ve reacted to public outcry or they would’ve been a big public outcry… I’ve said before that in the times that I knew Carter and was aware of, but not allowed to write about, all the stuff he did in the city for charity I felt he was an amazing person.
However. even good friends of mine, whose opinions and thoughts I respect greatly, have told me that they wouldn’t be OK with him signing in Philly. That they would be done with the Flyers if he did. And they have valid reasons for their opinions. There’s no question he made a mistake, and this definitely gets messy really fast…
It first really looked like Utah would be where he would get his fresh start. Remember this kid is a western Canada kid, and Flyers sources even told me he wanted to be closer to family…But now it looks like Las Vegas is where he’s going to sign. Carolina was also involved but as I understand the pressure there was too much for them to go through with it..
From a hockey perspective, this is a dangerous move for the rest of the NHL… if Carter can get back to where he was as a player he could be a serious difference maker.
Vegas and Edmonton are two teams who fully expect to win a Stanley Cup, and yet each have goaltending that has proven suspect of times…. It’s important to remember that at one point, 5 or so years ago, it would’ve been perfectly logical to expect Carter Hart to be in the running to be Team Canada’s goalie in the future…possibly by these coming Olympics.
I have heard some rumblings about Edmonton getting involved in this. Most of them have been dead ends when I followed up on them. However, when McDavid sign for less I immediately thought about just leaving money to solidifying their goaltending issues. Carter is from Edmonton and has been working out in Edmonton. It feels like the Oilers won’t be involved because this story was such a big story in Canada and Carter might want to separate himself from that as well. However, part of me just wonders is Stan Bowman looks at this and says he can’t pass it up. Then it would be up to Carter Hart who would be playing for his home team, a team has been to the Stanley Cup finals twice…
So that is out there, a couple of my sources saying they’ve heard rumblings from within the organization in Edmonton…. Feels like a long shot for probably a Lotta good reasons, but why would that put the hockey world on its edge.
My question to you is this…..
Are you OK with a team signing Carter Hart tomorrow?