Should the Flyers consider trading Hart?

Anyone that knows me will know that I absolutely HATE this question. When Hart was a prospect and the question was "which goalie will be the Flyers #1: Carter Hart or Felix Sandström?" I tried SO HARD not to choose a favorite goalie, or a favorite player, for that matter.

I just wanted to enjoy the team without having a favorite because I'd had favorites in the past and at some point, 9 times out of 10, favorites usually leave for another team, or in some cases another league/country. But the more I watched both Sandström and Hart in the prospect camps they attended, and the more I saw people kind of rooting for and leaning more toward Sandström, the more I leaned toward Hart. I have always been the "odd ball", so I always tend to lean away from the crowd choice in these situations.

After I stopped fighting choosing a favorite and decided on Hart, I watched the gold medal game of the 2017 World Juniors, saw Team Canada lose to Team USA in the shootout and saw how devastated Hart was, and as odd as it's going to sound, it caused me to truly start paying more attention to his career. I think it was because I realized he was just as human as me and everyone else, and that resonated with me.

After that I started out with just checking box scores for his Junior performances with the Everett Silvertips the morning following games just to see how his team was doing. By his final year of Junior, in 2018 I actually started full out following his games by staying up entirely too late most nights just to listen to the radio feeds to see how he was playing and if the Silvertips won or lost.

In that 2018 season, I watched the entire World Junior Tournament(or what I was able to, given my work schedule), and because they didn't face USA for the gold I felt like it was okay to cheer on Team Canada against Team Sweden for the gold medal.

So when they won it was fun to watch them all celebrate.(What happened with that team later that has a current ongoing investigation surrounding it and has obviously since tainted that win sucks, and is absolutely NOT okay, but in that moment before all the illegal activity some team members participated in, it was fun to watch.) I followed his 2018 season all the way through the Memorial Cup Championship loss.

When he turned pro in the 2018/19 season and got sent to the Phantoms and ultimately struggled mightily, it was concerning to watch. Looking back, that adversity helps an athlete grow. He'd never dealt with adversity of that magnitude before, and without it he probably wouldn't have persevered to get to the NHL. He'd have "plateaued" and who knows where he would have ended up? In the end, he found his way through that rough patch and when the Flyers were cycling through goalies like they were glasses of water due to injury, he ended up being a bright spot in an otherwise lost 2018/19 season when he was recalled and played well enough they couldn't rationalize sending him back to the Phantoms.

He has hit plenty of adversity since that first bump in the AHL, and he's largely found his way through every single time. Sometimes it took longer than others, but he came out on the other side no worse for wear. He rebounded last season from an abysmal 2020/21 pandemic shortened season that saw him put up atrocious numbers and struggle more than he ever had before. He later admitted the pandemic played a huge part in his game struggling, and that took courage. It's not a large amount, obviously. We're not talking a life and death situation here. But to know thousands of people are going to hear you or read your quote and still have the courage to say "I played poorly because life wasn't normal" takes some kind of courage given how society views mental health. He very well could've just shrugged his shoulders and said "it's hockey, we're human, we all struggle some times", or something vaguely to that affect, but he didn't. He was incredibly honest and said not being able to do "normal life" things weighed heavily on him and leaked into his game. So far this season, he has rebounded even more from the abysmal season two years ago, and to this point has for the most part, been the Flyers MVP. Which leads us to the title of his article. Is there a world where they should entertain this thought?

Personally speaking, I know Flyers games would become much more difficult for me to watch. The team just plays such a sloppy game and they frustrate the heck out of me most nights. On nights where Hart doesn't play, I watch, but I only pay about 50% attention because I just need a "break". I need the "reset" in order to deal with the insanity this team has turned into. But the question isn't "would you continue to watch games" the question is "should they entertain a trade involving him?" I'd say "do you trade your MVP?" But we already know the answer is "Sometimes" because Giroux was traded last year while he was the teams MVP, so yes, it happens. But do you trade a 24 year old goalie who appears to be just coming into his own, or do you ride it out a little longer and hope you hit the jackpot on something somewhere soon and can make a run? It's a tough question that I hate even entertaining, and I honestly don't have an answer to. So, I'll leave it to you guys. Should they entrain this thought, or pray they hit the jackpot(lottery?) in the near future?