Flyers rookie Carter Hart not worried about rebounding from his first NHL clunker

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Flyers rookie goalie Carter Hart isn’t worried about rebounding from the first poor performance of his young career.

“I think I’ve always bounced back from tough games,” said Hart, who allowed three goals on 10 shots and was removed early in the second period of Monday’s 3-1 loss in Carolina. “You put it in the archives and learn from it.”

Interim coach Scott Gordon knows Hart, 20, has a strong mental makeup, and said he liked the way the goaltender rebounded when pulled from two games when they both were with the AHL’s Phantoms.

Gordon recalled removing Hart with his team trailing Providence, 3-0, on Nov. 16. “He just didn’t seem like himself in that game," said Gordon, whose team, with Anthony Stolarz in the nets, rallied for a 5-4 win. ”I told him, ‘You’re playing the next night.’ And he bounced back and had one of his better games. It wasn’t that he had a ton of scoring chances against him, but he had some tough situations with traffic and I thought he responded really well."

Hart dropped a 3-2 decision to Springfield that night, but looked dialed in, and a short time later he began to get adjusted to the AHL and ran off an impressive five-game streak.

Michal Neuvirth, who stopped all 23 shots he faced in relief of Hart on Monday, got Tuesday’s start in Nashville. Gordon said he wasn’t sure yet if Hart would get the call Thursday against visiting Carolina, the same team that blitzed him for three goals in 22 minutes and 19 seconds Monday.

“I’m not looking that far ahead,” Gordon said before Tuesday’s game.

Hart, who is 2-3 with a 2.78 goals-against average and .899 save percentage, is looking forward to his next start.

“It was just one of those kind of nights,” he said of Monday’s loss. “There’s a lot of stuff I can learn from it and just move on and get ready for the next one. I just have to get back to work.”

The Flyers began Tuesday with a 12.6 percent success rate on the power play, which placed them last in the NHL. They had scored a power-play goal in just four of their last 23 games.

“I’d like us to have a little more zone time; we haven’t had as much in the last two games,” Gordon said before Tuesday’s contest, “and as a result, we’re not giving ourselves multiple opportunities.”

Kris Knoblauch, the team’s power-play coach, could be on the verge of changing the power-play lineup and its scheme.

Center Nolan Patrick, who has missed the last three games with an upper-body injury, is questionable for Thursday’s game against Carolina, Gordon said. He is likely to return Saturday against Calgary and South Jersey’s Johnny Gaudreau.

Two young players -- 6-foot-5, 212-pound defenseman Phil Myers and 6-3, 214-pound center Connor Bunnaman -- had impressive weeks for the Phantoms (19-10-3 ).

Myers, a right-handed shooter who turns 22 on Jan. 25, had six points (goal, five assists) and a plus-7 rating in three games, and Bunnaman, 20, continued a streak that gave him points in five straight games. After collecting just three points in his first 13 games, Bunnaman has points in eight of 10 contests.

Lehigh Valley’s T.J. Brennan, 29, the pride of Moorestown, moved into third place on the AHL’s all-time list for points for a defenseman. He has 454 career points.