There’s a little more than five weeks until the trade deadline and Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher could have his plate full.

There are pressing needs for the future of a team that is 14 points out of a playoff spot. For the first time in a long time, goaltending may not be one of them.

Carter Hart has played in 11 games and keeps showing that not only can he play at the highest level, he has the mental strength to be steady when his team is not.

Take Wednesday night for example when he was the only Flyer with a good first period against the Boston Bruins despite allowing two goals. For the second straight game he played well enough, despite being down 2-0, for his team to mount a comeback and get a win.

“I have different things that I just kind of say in my head for little reminders,” Hart said after the Flyers’ 4-3 win. “It’s just very subtle and things to help me regain my focus.”

“It’s a lot harder to play the game thinking that the next mistake is gonna put your team in a bigger hole and it might not even be your mistake. It might be someone else’s mistake,” interim coach Scott Gordon added. “That really shows a lot about his mental ability to get through that and be able to go out and perform and allow the team to stay close until you get an opportunity to get some goals.”

Ever since the Flyers drafted him in 2016, Hart has been perceived to be the future of the franchise. It was just a matter of when the future was supposed to start. Even after the 20-year-old was recalled on Dec. 17, there was a question as to whether he really belonged.

Is it even still in question?

Out of necessity he is the team’s starter with Michal Neuvirth and Brian Elliott on the shelf with injuries and Anthony Stolarz back in Lehigh Valley on a conditioning stint. His statistics and the way the Flyers have played in front of him show that he’s also the best option that they have, and his teammates want him to stay.

“He’s not really yelling on the shooting lanes. I think the D corps here, we kind of grow as the season goes on and we kind of help him out and know what he needs and help ourselves in clearing the lane for him,” defenseman Radko Gudas said after the team blocked 30 shots in front of Hart Wednesday night. “When he plays the puck, we’re trying to talk to him as much as we can. He’s still young. We’re trying to be as vocal as we can. He’s doing a great job for us.”

“I didn’t really know him before, but you can tell he’s a mature kid,” Sean Couturier added. “He prepares himself well and does a lot of little things away from the rink that helps his game on the ice. He’s pretty calm back there. That’s what you want from your goalie.”

Fans and analysts of hockey have known about Hart for quite a while. In three years with the Western Hockey League’s Everett Silvertips, he has one of the most decorated junior hockey careers of any goalie ever. He’s the first to ever win the Canadian Hockey League’s “goalie of the year” title twice.

He also won gold for Canada in the World Junior Championships last season and took his nation to the final game in the prior season too, before losing to the U.S. in a shootout. That’s roughly when his current teammates started noticing the hype.

“The World Juniors I think is when guys saw him a little bit more,” Claude Giroux said. “When he played in (Everett) we didn’t get to see him a lot and even at camp, he wasn’t at camp a long time. It’s pretty impressive. There’s not a lot of goalies that are 20-years-old, make the jump and are making a difference right away. We’re doing our best to play hard in front of him and when there’s chances against him, he’s pretty solid. He’s a great kid and a goalie you want to play for.”

Hart is still in limbo, staying at a hotel in Voorhees as a temporary fixture on the roster.

Of course, he wants to stay with the big club after only 17 games with the American Hockey League Phantoms as a warmup. Each game is a new audition for him to tell Fletcher that there is no eighth goalie needed in Philadelphia, that he can take the reins from here whether the Flyers make the playoffs or not.

That’s not how Hart thinks of it, however. He has been conditioned by a sports psychologist for more than half his life to think in much smaller increments than job auditions.

“I don’t think I have to worry about that. That’s out of my control,” Hart said. “The only thing I have control over is my play and what I do every day to make sure I stay on top of my game. I can’t dictate what he decides to do but I think I can help myself by just coming to the rink every day ready to work and playing my game.”

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

Up next: at Montreal Canadiens

When: 7 p.m., Saturday

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