Well, it has happened, folks. The goalie curse has come for our youngest child. We hoped he may last the winter, but he fell to the blight that has claimed the rest of our children, our crops, and our livelihoods. Carter Hart has suffered a lower-body injury and is expected to be out for a minimum of 10 days.
#Flyers goaltender Carter Hart has a lower-body injury and is expected to be out a minimum of 10 days. pic.twitter.com/b69WLB2CDv
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) February 23, 2019
The timing of this announcement seems a little bit suspect. Just yesterday it was announced that Brian Elliott would be getting the start in today’s Stadium Series game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, news that caused a wave of righteous fury to descend upon the poor intern who runs the Philadelphia Flyers Twitter account. The general consensus was that Scott Gordon had run Hart into the ground, tired him out, and now the most exciting thing to happen to the Flyers this season won’t be showcased in the biggest game of the year. But of course.
Scott Gordon had this to say about the decision:
So the hard part, and I said this to Carter, if I had to go with — no pun intended — my heart, 100 percent the easy decision is to go with Carter. I think the world of him. I’ve been so impressed with how he’s been able to come up here and play and it really bothered me to have to make the final decision as to not playing him.
So, yeah, it seems a little weird that Hart now has a sudden lower-body injury. It does look a lot like the team is trying to save face for making a deeply unpopular decision. However, I’ll take the high road here and say that it’s not likely to me that they would take Hart out for more than one game if they were just trying to avoid backlash from the fans. As Philadelphia sports fans, we’re all conspiracy theorists at heart, but this organization knows how we feel about our son. I doubt this is a calculated move.
We’ll know more later, I suppose, but for now we will have to overreact with minimal information, something we all excel at doing.
