NHL to suspend Carter Hart, four former Hockey Canada codefendants until Dec. 1
Hart, Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton, and Michael McLeod, who were acquitted of sexual assault charges in July, will be eligible to sign with NHL teams beginning on Oct. 15.
Flyers governor Dan Hilferty and president Keith Jones declined to comment Wednesday when asked about Carter Hart’s future and the team’s level of interest in reuniting with the goaltender, citing the NHL’s need to rule on his eligibility first.
“The NHL has made it clear they’ll speak first, but right now, we’re not prepared to comment at all about the Carter Hart situation,” Hilferty said at the preseason media availability. “The NHL has told us they are running the show.”
A day later, the NHL announced that Hart, Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton, and Michael McLeod, all of whom recently were acquitted on sexual assault charges in Canada, will be suspended through Dec. 1. NHL teams cannot sign any of the five players until Oct. 15.
» READ MORE: Former Flyers goalie Carter Hart found not guilty in Hockey Canada sexual assault case
“The events that transpired after the 2018 Hockey Canada Foundation Gala in London, Ontario, prior to these players’ arrival in the NHL, were deeply troubling and unacceptable,” the NHL’s statement read. “The League expects everyone connected with the game to conduct themselves with the highest level of moral integrity. And, in this case, while found not to have been criminal, the conduct of the players involved certainly did not meet that standard.”
The ruling provides clarity on a situation on which the NHL largely has stayed quiet as the legal process played out over the past few years. None of the five players have played in the league since being charged with sexual assault in February 2024 in connection with a 2018 incident after a Hockey Canada banquet in London, Ontario.
The five players, all members of Canada’s 2018 gold-medal winning team, were accused of sexually assaulting a woman in McLeod’s hotel room after he had met her earlier that night at a downtown bar. An investigation into the allegations was opened by London police in the days after the incident, but it was closed in 2019. The case was reopened in 2022 after an internal review and culminated in a trial this spring.
Hart, who was the only one of the five players to take the stand in his own defense during the trial, testified that he received oral sex from the woman but that the sexual contact was consensual.
“I don’t think anyone would have done anything to hurt her,” Hart said during cross-examination in May. “I think if something happened that she didn’t want, I would have put a stop to it. Other guys would have. I wouldn’t have stayed in the room as long as I did.”
After a seven-week trial that began in April and ended in mid-June, Judge Maria Carroccia found all five players not guilty on July 24. In her ruling, she called the accuser’s testimony unreliable and said the Crown (plaintiff) could not “meet its onus on any of the counts before me.”
Despite the players’ acquittal, based on the findings from the NHL’s third-party investigation and the conclusions of Carroccia, the league determined “that the conduct at issue falls woefully short of the standards and values that the League and its Member Clubs expect and demand.”
The NHL added that the players expressed remorse for their actions in meetings with the league following the verdicts and have accepted the terms of the punishment. In determining the length of the punishment, the NHL said it factored in the players’ lost time during the legal proceedings, which, with the suspensions tacked on, will come to nearly two years.
With concrete guidelines and punishments announced, the question now turns to how comfortable NHL teams will be signing the players involved, all of whom became free agents by the end of the 2023-24 season. Hart, 27, is the most accomplished of the group and likely will be the most in-demand given his resume and the premium position he plays.
A second-round pick of the Flyers in 2016, Hart once was viewed as the franchise’s savior in net. In six NHL seasons, the Alberta native played 227 games, winning 96, and posted a .906 career save percentage. Before taking a leave of absence before the charges were levied in 2024, Hart was 12-9-3 with a .906 save percentage in 2023-24.
Whether the Flyers, who have struggled mightily between the pipes since Hart’s departure, would be open to a reunion with the goaltender and the ramifications that would come with signing him remains to be seen. We’ll see what general manager Danny Brière says Tuesday at his preseason media availability.