ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Carter Hart doesn’t know what to make of the new boss. He hasn’t met Chuck Fletcher yet, so the Flyers’ top goalie prospect is unsure what a new regime means for his immediate or long-term future.

The day that Fletcher was introduced to the media as the Flyers’ new general manager, last Wednesday, he went up to see the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. Since they lost 5-1 to the Cleveland Monsters that night, he opted not to go into the locker room and introduce himself to the players.

Fletcher entered the organization knowing that Hart, 20 and a rookie in the American Hockey League, is set up to be a big part of the Flyers’ future. As improvement has been hard to come by at the NHL level, it’s natural to wonder if Fletcher is any more likely to bring Hart up sooner than Ron Hextall would have.

“I think I’d prefer to err on the side of caution,” Fletcher said last week, “yet when you look around the league, there are some kids that can handle it to come in and play. You try to let their play dictate it. Usually if they have a great camp, sometimes you can start them and see what happens. If they struggle in the training camp, you know that they aren’t going to be ready for the season and you need to get them down.”

Hart did have a good camp, better than any of his competition, anyway. His .922 save percentage in 160 minutes was better than any other Flyer in exhibition play. The next best was Brian Elliott who had a .897 save percentage in 138 minutes and is poised to return soon from injured reserve. He hasn’t played in almost a month after suffering a “lower-body injury.”

“I’m not keeping that out of the realms,” Hart said when asked if he thought playing in the NHL this season was realistic, “but it’s been my goal to be there as soon as I can and that’s gonna always be my goal. I want to be there whether that’s next week, whether that’s a month from now, two months. I want to be there and I want to be there this year.”

In retrospect, it’s pretty clear that having Hart start in the American Hockey League was the right move. Even after 15 games, his save percentage for the season still isn’t quite .900. He’s starting to feel better as a pro hockey player and, like a lot of fans, is wondering if he’ll get a shot sooner rather than later.

“I can’t control what they’re thinking and how they view me and what their thoughts might be on me, but what I can control is my play and how I approach my game and how I approach practice and all the things that I do to get better,” Hart said.

“It was a little bit different just with all the different scenarios on and off the ice. I’m a lot more comfortable with the guys now. I’m in a routine off the ice. I’ve got things figured out at home. I got things figured out here (at the rink). I think that’s been the biggest adjustments. I feel comfortable now and I feel good.”

Hart has been especially sharp in his last three games, all wins and a combined .955 save percentage. His last time out he had his first pro shutout in a 26-save, 1-0 win over the Hershey Bears.

Phantoms coach Scott Gordon thought Hart’s game was on the precipice of taking off a couple weeks ago and it looks like he was right.

“When we went to Canada (last weekend), we played on Friday night, played Laval. Outside of maybe five rebounds, everything else was pretty clean,” Gordon said. “Then on the Sunday game against Toronto, there might have been one or two rebounds that wasn’t clean. Then against Hershey, he didn’t have a busy night but he made the timely saves, the important saves. I think there was only one rebound that was a controllable rebound that actually led to us being shorthanded trying to clear the puck. It was a rebound right in front of the net. That to me was the biggest change, his rebound control. He’s getting more pucks into the right places and not creating more work for himself.”

“For me, tracking is a huge part of my game and I feel like I’ve really focused on that in the last couple weeks and that’s one of my strengths in my game,” Hart added. “I’ve just been trusting it. I’ve had talks with my goalie coaches here, my goalie coaches back home and gone over video and I’m feeling more confident in the net.”

Some of the Phantoms try to watch every Flyers game they can, get a feel for the tendencies of the players they hope will be future teammates. Hart has watched only one game, Sunday’s 7-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets, and that was only because Phil Varone was recalled and made his Flyers debut.

“I know he’s been playing really well down here and he deserves to get a shot up there,” Hart said of last year’s AHL MVP. “It’s probably been long overdue, so I wanted to see how he did and I was really happy for him that he got an opportunity. Other than that, I don’t watch anything. I just focus on what’s going on down here.”

Hart said that his consistency is still a work in progress and his treating practices like games has helped him get better on a daily basis instead of waiting for the weekends when the Phantoms see action. Even though he knows there’s room for improvement, he wants to get the call that Varone did as soon as possible.

“You never know for sure what the risk is,” Gordon said.

“That’s not to say that he couldn’t go up there and play great, but there’s also the possibility that he won’t. It’s just a question of what’s the long-term, best thing for any goaltender? There’s no question that whether it’s a half a year, a full year or whether it ends up being two years, you’re gonna be better for it. Marc-Andre Fleury was better for it. Tuukka Rask was better for it. There’s so many goalies that played in the American Hockey League and had great NHL careers. A lot of them started and played full years in the American Hockey League. The only one off the top of my head that didn’t was Carey Price, but Carey Price went to Hamilton at the end of the year and won a Calder Cup. He showed he could play a high level of hockey against the best team in a seven-game series and win the championship. There’s a lot of things that came out of that experience for him.”

Dave Isaac; @davegisaac; 856-486-2479; disaac@gannett.com

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