Flyers goalie prospect Carter Hart uses sports psychologist to stay focused

In trying to fill the 6-foot-by-4-foot void that has sabotaged so many promising seasons, the Flyers have rolled the dice on their fair share of goalie flakes. Roman Cechmanek, so irked at his teammates, once left his net while the puck was in play. Ilya Bryzgalov always seemed more concerned with solar systems than stopping pucks.

To channel his inner self, Robert Esche stopped talking for months, earning the nickname  "Silent Bob," a nod to the movie "Clerks."

So longtime Flyers fans may be a tad alarmed to learn that 18-year-old Carter Hart, the most touted and anticipated goaltender in a system full of them, has been working with a sports psychologist since he was 10.

"I talk to him on a regular basis," Hart said Friday during the first day at the Flyers development camp at Skate Zone in Voorhees. "He's been great for me. I've learned a lot on the mental side of things."

Hart has played most of his teen-aged years under the inescapable glare that social media musings have brought. He has played for national teams, in high-pressure high-stakes medal games, and he has rolled together consecutive consistent seasons that suggest his likely return to the Western Hockey Association this season would be a waste of time and good goaltending.

But alas, there's no room at the inn for a player who is too young for a permanent AHL promotion ( he briefly joined the Phantoms late last season after his WHL season had concluded) and who is blocked at the NHL level by two veteran goalies and their combined $5 million in salary. Even one so obviously mature beyond his years. Felix Sandstrom, the 20-year-old Swede who has played himself into the future goaltender conversation, sits two stalls down at this camp, and the Flyers used a third-round pick to draft yet another goalie in June.

That's what prompted the discussion about the psychologist, John Stevenson, who morphed from those days doubling as Hart's goalie coach to a full-time professional who has worked with elite level players such as Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby.

"He really tried to get in your head and just tried to mess with you and just tried to help you to just focus," Hart said. "One of the first things that really stuck out to me was just to control what you can control and don't worry about everything else.  It's a long year, and you really have to be mentally tough. Take care of your body, take care of your mind, and make sure you get your rest. Treat your body right. You worry about those things, you'll be fine.''

That is why, when the draft was going on, Hart was out with friends. He found out the Flyers picked Russian goalie Kirill Ustimenko in the third round only when his father texted him. His reaction? There was none.

"I don't think that really matters,'' Hart said. "It's just goalie depth, really. And there's nothing wrong with having goalie depth because you never know what happens. The position of goaltending can be tough on the body. So there's nothing wrong with having too many goaltenders.''

Even if you are one of them?

"It doesn't bother me,'' Hart said. "You've got to worry about yourself at this point.''

And so he does, picking apart a game that, to the naked eye at least, seems to have few holes. When Hart left camp last summer, the Flyers urged him to improve his skating and his ice awareness. "And in this year's camp, that has really translated,'' he said. "Even just into this first session.''

It may not be enough to shake the goalie tree that general manager Ron Hextall has meticulously constructed. As equally unlikely though is that Hart will fall to pieces about it, will skate away from his net when irked, gaze at the stars or even — good heavens, no — stop talking.

The last time he did anything even resembling that was when he was just a kid without a sports psychologist.

"I just don't get that mad on the ice,'' he said. "When I was 10, this kid kept crashing me in the net. My dad was on the bench coaching, and he said, 'OK, just give it to this kid.'  So I just kept blockering him. But I actually didn't know they considered the blocker a weapon, and it was an automatic five-game suspension.

"So I got a five-game suspension when I was 10 years old.''