Flyers goalie Carter Hart takes step in right direction in narrow win over Rangers

Carter Hart took a step in the right direction as he helped the Flyers outlast the New York Rangers on Monday, 5-4.

Flyers goaltender Carter Hart played well in the overtime win over the New York Rangers on Monday, but says he has a lot to work on.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

Published March 16, 2021, 6:05 p.m. ET

Carter Hart wasn’t lights-out, but he was very good, and his play on the ice was much better than his misleading numbers -- four goals allowed on 24 shots -- in the Flyers’ 5-4 overtime win Monday over the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.

The Flyers left Hart hung out to dry on three of the goals, but the 22-year-old goalie made enough clutch stops to help the Flyers start their four-game road trip on a positive note.

The teams meet again Wednesday at Madison Square Garden.

It was just Hart’s second win in his last seven starts, and he helped the Flyers end a two-game losing streak.

“You’ve just got to keep working and it’s going to turn around,” right winger Jake Voracek said. “He’s too good of a goalie not to get any bounces, any luck. We knew he was going to come around and he definitely made a couple big stops, especially that save at the beginning of the third with our PK. That stop on [Chris] Kreider, I think was spectacular. It’s a good game for him and something to build on.”

Hart has been spending extra time working with goalie coach Kim Dillabaugh.

“I definitely feel better, but there’s still a lot of areas I have to keep working at,” Hart said. “It was just nice to get back in the win column. That was a huge win for our group.”

It will be interesting to see if coach Alain Vigneault plays Hart on Wednesday against the Rangers, or if he uses Brian Elliott and then goes back to Hart on Thursday against the Islanders.

In his young career, Hart is 4-1-1 with a 2.45 goals-against average against the Rangers; he is 1-2 with a 4.41 GAA and .866 save percentage against the Isles.

Defending their captain

After Flyers captain Claude Giroux went down from defenseman Brendan Smith’s open-ice hit Monday, Giroux’s teammates, Nolan Patrick and Voracek, took turns going after Smith.

Vigneault, who thought Smith should have been penalized for the hit, liked his players’ response -- even if they did get roughing minors, along with Smith.

“Players that support one another is a big part of the team’s character,” Vigneault said.

Breakaways

The Rangers’ Pavel Buchnevich and Adam Fox remained on the COVID-19 protocol list Tuesday. Buchnevich co-leads the Blueshirts with 22 points, and Fox is a top-pairing defenseman. ... The Flyers sandwiched two good periods around a clunker of a second period Monday. “We need to do it for 60 minutes,” assistant Ian Laperriere said. “But on the other hand, you have to give credit to the Rangers, too ... They’re playing well and they had a good pushback.” ... Laperriere on Patrick and Oskar Lindblom: “Missing that much hockey” -- as they did last year -- “at this level is hard to get back and they just need to put the work in.” He said both were working hard to get back to form. ... Laperriere said 21-year-old Joel Farabee (12 goals) is like Sean Couturier in that “he reads the game well in front of him. It’s impressive.”