*deep sigh* This is always death here...having a dissenting opinion on a main board, especially in the face of hype and old standbys like save pct. or whatever stat he is killing it in haha...but here goes...
I don't think this guy is tracking towards being a starting NHL goalie of any noteworthy regard. I've seen him, I've seen him live, I'm going to see more of him when I fly out to Buffalo in a couple days (where he is on my shortlist of players to get updated notes on)...the good that I see, is that he is athletic, he plays between the posts pretty well and his puck-tracking is pretty sure-handed. You see that chin is tucked as he tracks across, it's confident, it's head first...I guess he's a Braden Holtby disciple in that regard, as I think his head movements want to be like Holtby's - so that's a plus. And frankly, it's a good foundation for success. Tracking and athleticism is enough to start the wheels moving on the development arc. He's not frantic in net, he's rarely outside his posts with over-commits...in fact, if anything, he might under-commit to some stuff interestingly...
I honestly have no idea what his numbers are, I've heard good things, but averaging statistics and scouting go together like lamb and tuna fish...but from a development perspective, I've been less than impressed in how he's progressed in the last 12 or so months. I see a lot of the same holes in his technique in the time where a lot of goalies really start to close them up if they're going to be in the show soon. Let's just take a snippet as to not speak in generalities...his post set-up, he is married to reverse-VH and that's not my favorite personally, but I can live with that...I love Jonathan Quick and he does it, so I can live with it...but it's not tight, you look at where the shoulder lines up and how the glove is held (and I know, it's a Canadian thing not to have active hands like Finns or Americans usually...but he's got some lazy hands sometimes...get that glove engaged, buddy), there's holes there...and they're repeat holes, they show up all the time...if you're going to commit to this reverse-VH thing when shooters are coming below the dots (as opposed to when you'd rather see it, when plays originate from behind the net and move across the net line), then you have to be sure nothing is going in on that half of the net because the way that his skate sits on the near-side post, he needs a hitch step or hitch and a half just to get himself across the net line. And that's leaving behind his stick discipline too, which is really poor...his stick is mostly just along for the ride...one of the advantages that reverse-VH gives you over VH is stick freedom and flexibility...but he leaves it open, he leaves it behind him, he's just dragging it around...I know stick skills aren't en vogue any more, they skip it at the youth levels and up for whatever reason, that pendulum will swing back one day (maybe after Jake Allen or Ben Bishop win a Stanley Cup) but Hart wouldn't miss a beat if he was playing with a baseball bat...I don't care much for that wanton disregard for a valuable tool.
Then you look at single-lane rush chances and you just watch his backward rotation with the shooter and it's a little uneasy...that inside shoulder doesn't get square enough against faster shooters...now, you can't beat him in junior, I get that...there aren't enough good players that can beat him in that circuit...but there are in the AHL to take advantage of this...Matt Murray, to use a recent major junior grad, struggled with this early on too...backward rotation with the shooter and inside shoulder squareness will prevent a lot of leaky goals, but you also need to make it jive with your post setups eventually too...and he plays these two aspects of his game like he's huge, but he's not...if he was Ben Bishop, ok sure, you're a foot taller than everyone in creation, do whatever you want, just don't give up pucks through your body (like Anders Lindback failed to concur, that's why one of them stayed in the league and one didn't...they started out on the same shaky ground)...it's low-hanging fruit, but it's almost like Brian Elliott, who is really annoying to watch and has been his whole career, he plays like he can get away with all this stuff - not getting square, he gets borderline sideways if there's anyone else on the rink because his rotation is so poor and that's why he gives up just goofball goals at brutal times...when you study goaltenders when you actually need to beat them (in a 7 game series) you dial-in on this stuff and you exploit it...isn't Elliott like the all-time* save pct. king or some nonsense? Yet, in the playoffs, you couldn't hit him with a puck if you tried...? That's not an accident or a coincidence...
Anyway, I'm excited to see Hart live again next week and maybe see a world-class performance out of him (except against the Americans, please), but I have some major concerns about his technique and the holes in it...not for the level that he's currently at, there isn't enough good players to do a damn thing about it, but as he moves up, can someone help him become a lot more tidy in how he goes about his business...hell, even ask Alex Lyon when you get up here, for some tidiness tips...Lyon has the cleanest technique probably among all the Flyers goalie prospects and they have the best stable of them in the league probably...
