Oct. 25: The Golden Knights have registered the contract, PuckPedia reports. The deal carries a $1.45MM signing bonus this season with a league-minimum salary of $775K. In 2026-27, Hart will make $1.775MM in salary with no signing bonus.
Oct. 24: Vegas will be converting Hart’s tryout into a two-year contract as expected. It’ll be worth $4MM with an average annual value of $2MM, Darren Dreger of TSN reports.
Oct. 16, 12:31 p.m.: The Golden Knights announced that Hart will be joining the organization, although there isn’t a guaranteed contract yet – he’ll begin his work on a tryout with AHL Henderson, Chris Johnston of The Athletic and TSN reports. Vegas’ full statement is as follows:
Following the reinstatement decision agreed on by the National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players’ Association, goaltender Carter Hart will be joining the Vegas Golden Knights organization. The Golden Knights are aligned with the process and assessment the NHL and NHLPA made in their decision. We remain committed to the core values that have defined our organization from its inception and expect that our players will continue to meet these standards moving forward.
Oct. 16, 8:30 a.m.: The Vegas Golden Knights are nearing a deal with free agent netminder Carter Hart, insider Frank Seravalli reported on his Victory+ show yesterday. Seravalli said, “I’d expect Hart’s deal to be two years,” a bit north of the league-minimum salary.
Elite Prospects’ Cam Robinson seconded Seravalli’s report and provided a little more detail, stating that Hart’s deal is expected to be a two-year, $1.8MM AAV pact. Hart, who Wasserman’s Judd Moldaver reps, became eligible to sign an NHL contract yesterday but is not eligible to play until December 1st.
That Hart isn’t eligible to play until December is notable given a recent injury to starter Adin Hill during the team’s road win against the Calgary Flames two days ago. There has been no further update on Hill’s status, but since Hart remains ineligible to play for the next month and a half, the Golden Knights will have to look elsewhere to reinforce their position in the crease should Hill miss any time.
While no deal with Hart has been officially announced to this point, Vegas’ interest in Hart has been widely reported, even going back to September, when The Athletic’s Chris Johnston called the team a front-runner to secure the netminder’s services.
It was reported earlier that month that Hart would receive interest from multiple NHL teams, which is notable as the other four Hockey Canada players acquitted of charges this summer in connection to an alleged sexual assault have been met with more muted NHL interest.
Center Michael McLeod was at one point expected to sign a deal with the Carolina Hurricanes, but ultimately agreed on a three-year extension with Avangard Omsk of the KHL, the side he played for in 2024-25.
A month ago, Ottawa Senators GM Steve Staios commented that both his organization and forward Alex Formenton agreed that “a fresh start” would be the best option for both sides. Still, thus far, Formenton hasn’t been able to secure another NHL team to play for. He is currently playing out a four-month contract (that contains an option to extend for the rest of the 2025-26 season) with Swiss National League side HC Ambri-Piotta.
The final two players involved in this past summer’s trial, defenseman Cal Foote and forward Dillon Dube, remain free agents. Foote spent 2024-25 with HK 32 Liptovsky Mikulas of the Slovak Extraliga, while Dube played for Dinamo Minsk in the KHL. There has not yet been much reporting indicating serious NHL interest in either player. The only notable report that was issued regarding either player came from The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta, who noted that the Toronto Maple Leafs would not be interested in signing Dube.
As a result, it appears Hart is, by far, the most likely candidate of this group of players to receive an NHL contract in the short-term future. Hart is also, among the group, arguably its most accomplished NHL player.
The 27-year-old was once one of the more promising goalies in the sport, playing to solid results (.906 career save percentage across 227 games) for the Philadelphia Flyers. While the Flyers mostly struggled during Hart’s tenure, especially later on, he did backstop them on one playoff run, posting a .926 save percentage in 14 games during the 2019-20 season. That Flyers team fell in seven games to the New York Islanders in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
In Vegas, Hart would potentially have the opportunity to get a real chance to play games for one of the NHL’s leading Stanley Cup contenders. The Golden Knights, who currently sit first in the Pacific Division with a 2-0-2 record, are loaded with high-end veteran talent, including center Jack Eichel, defenseman Shea Theodore, and wingers Mitch Marner and Mark Stone.
Hill, the team’s starter, backstopped the team to its first-ever Stanley Cup championship in 2023, but the 29-year-old doesn’t have an extensive resume as a number-one goalie. While he started to achieve real success on a Stanley Cup-winning team, he has also made 50 starts in a season just once in his career.
Whether Hart has a path to being Vegas’ long-term number-one goalie is unclear at this stage.
Hill was signed to a six-year, $6.25MM AAV contract extension in March, signaling the Golden Knights’ commitment to him as their top netminder moving forward. But the Golden Knights have shown a willingness to make aggressive moves to maximize their competitive chances in the past, especially in net, such as when they acquired and extended netminder Robin Lehner despite the presence of Vezina winner Marc-Andre Fleury on their roster.
As a result, assuming Hart does sign in Vegas, and assuming he can play well upon his return to the NHL, a potential long-term future in Vegas cannot be counted out, even though Hill has signed that hefty extension. If the Golden Knights feel, down the line, that Hart gives them the best chance to win long-term, everything they have done and accomplished as an organization thus far suggests they won’t hesitate to re-sign Hart, even with Hill signed. Worth noting here is that under the reported terms of Hart’s expected contract (two years, $1.8MM AAV), Hart would become eligible to sign a contract extension on July 1st.
Bringing that up may be getting a little bit ahead of things, though, as the reality is Hart has not played competitive hockey since he left the Flyers in January of 2024. While he was once seen as a promising young netminder, it’s difficult to project how a player will perform, especially a goalie, after missing so much time. The Golden Knights, though, based on all of the available reporting, clearly believe in Hart’s NHL future, and appear poised to sign a two-year contract with the player that reflects that belief.
Photo courtesy of Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
Shame.
My personal feelings are that any person who is okay with him representing their team, their city, and the NHL let’s their morality manifest differently than mine. This doesn’t mean anyone who disagrees is a “bad person” or any judgements about their morality, it is just different.
As an aside, I am very shocked that Edmonton did not go all out to sign him as he is a competent goaltender and that seems to be the #1 thing keeping them from winning it all.
Lock up your teenage girls. Pervert in the desert warning.
He has been acquitted! The judge even went so far as to state that the girl was not credible, so that means it was consensual!
It’s none of anyone’s business what another person likes or does in the bedroom – as long as everyone involved is an adult and agrees with it.
So what on earth what makes you think that he shouldn’t play hockey anymore – effectively destroying him for something (legal!) he did as a very young man?
This is so bigoted, self-righteous and fundamentally unfair – and I am glad Vegas will give him a chance. Another misfit who will do great there I suppose
As someone who lives in the city where this case was decided, I will tell you that is a gross mischaracterization of what the judge actually said. If you give a damn about what the public here actually thinks of the verdict, read what the London Abused Women’s Center has said on the matter.
“On July 24, all five defendants were found not guilty through acquittal with the judge stating, she did not find E.M.’s evidence “credible or reliable”, and that “the Crown cannot meet its onus on any of the counts”.
Wikipedia (with sources).
A non-biased source based on facts.
These players absolutely deserve a chance to play. However, sports athletes are also in the public eye; they are celebrities too. A cost of their fame is being held to a higher moral standard. They have to account for public perception since part of their earning power is based on being liked by fans, and on the PR side, they lost in the court of public opinion.
Pyramid guy using a women’s rights group as the bible on this is crazy. Those 5 guys are weird and idiots but if they were acquitted, then they didn’t do anything wrong. Time to move on.
she did exactly what Kane’s accuser did, consented until she changed her mind after the fact, we all know a gold digger civil case wouldve followed, intoxicated or sober doesn’t matter she consented, Kane’s accuser had 3 other mens DNA inside her but none matched Kane. this is a 2.0 of that case
Socially acceptable for NFL cities to allow this kind of behavior.
OK, so…
If I thought these guys were guilty or got off easy (acquittal =/= innocence) I’d be perfectly happy to cancel and MeToo them, but (as best as I can follow based on vaguely written Sportsnet articles) I am unaware of any accusations of wrongdoing that survived the evidence at trial.
I don’t want to defend them if I missed something…but I don’t understand the backlash to them at this point. I don’t understand the league punishing them. I really don’t understand the union not defending them.
What is it that they are STILL considered to have done wrong?
Being seduced my an older puck bunny? Whom profited greatly from the act!
I agree with this. There’s no reason for all the hate. Of course nobody knows what actually happened and I’m not one who condones these types of sexual situations none of the evidence to make them sexual criminals stood in court. As far as I’m concerned though I don’t agree with any of the parties as to their arrangement nothing was done outside of consent. And the judge couldn’t find any evidence that was worth any consideration. This notion that these guys are still scumbags is ridiculous. They are stupid kids no doubt but they’re sick sex offenders.
But they’re not sick sex offenders *
Without getting too deep into the reeds, the victim was drunk and agreed to go home with ONE of the players accused. He then invited his buddies over and they, while she was unable to consent, assaulted her.
Consent is a difficult thing to prove. The onus of Canadian law is not to pass verdict on what did and did not happen, but rather if they can find and present sufficient evidence to prove the crime occured.
In other words – under the lens of the law, there was not sufficient evidence. That does not mean nothing illegal and immoral happened.
Of course VEGAS would be the team to give a contract to someone accused of an awful crime.
Where do you come up with this stuff? In the real world, being accused of a crime does not make one guilty of a crime. See Brian Banks. See Duke lacrosse.
I believe victims.
So you believe Tara Reade?