SPECULATION: Sharks Interested in Carter Hart?

I think the San Jose Sharks are in a rebuild.

But maybe they don’t think so.

“You know which team I really wonder about here, with Carter Hart?” Jeff Marek mused on his “32 Thoughts Podcast” today. “The San Jose Sharks. That’s a team that doesn’t want to take a step back, but they know they really have to start to turn this team over. There’s not going to be a classic teardown.”

Yesterday, Anthony Di Marco of the Fourth Period reported that the Philadelphia Flyers were actively trying to deal their 24-year-old star netminder.

While Hart, 2018 World Junior Championships gold medalist, hasn’t quite lived up to his early hype, he is a clear-cut No. 1 goalie with room to grow.

Hart is also in line for a sizeable extension. He has a $3.979 million cap hit right now but is an RFA after this coming season.

For the San Jose Sharks, a 24-year-old with Hart’s pedigree and upside could potentially solve their goaltending problems for the next decade.

Save for James Reimer’s 2021-22 campaign, the Sharks haven’t received reliable goaltending since 2017-18. Since then, Martin Jones, Aaron Dell, Devan Dubnyk, Adin Hill, Reimer, and Kaapo Kahkonen have all patrolled the crease with little success. Over the last four years, the Sharks’ .429 Points % is third-worst in the NHL.

So there’s no doubt that the Sharks could use Hart.

But he’s not likely to come cheap, which is why he doesn’t seem to make sense for a Sharks organization that is still in the early stages of a rebuild, and if anything, should probably be hoarding futures. Why trade for Hart when you wouldn’t even engage with 26-year-old Timo Meier about an extension this past season?

Of course, one is a goalie and one is a winger, and the San Jose Sharks will have to solve their goaltending crisis at some point to make their way out of the cellar.