Philly Sports: What each team can be thankful for

Flyers: Carter Hart

Duh.

We’ll get the most obvious one out of the way early here. This Flyers club is actually set up pretty well, with a balanced roster and a nice stockpile of young talent, especially on defense. But make no mistake, goaltender Carter Hart is the one ingredient that can make this a truly special recipe.

You can read the gushy articles about Hart on any Philly sports site, so I’ll spare telling you what you already know. But suffice to say, he makes the Flyers a scary team for the next decade, at least if he continues on this trajectory.

The Flyers fan in me will always fear a dropoff in performance because NHL goaltending is so unpredictable. Or, in keeping more with Flyers history, a career-altering injury would be a more likely scenario. Sorry, but my brain tells me that the Flyers can never have nice things. But Hart has shown nothing whatsoever to make us have one shred of doubt about him to this point. He is set to be the backbone of this team for the 2020s.

That’s a mighty fine thing to be thankful for.

Also in the mix: The inspirational Oskar Lindblom, the unflappable Alain Vigneault, and iron man Ivan Provorov.