Carter Hart is joining the Vegas Golden Knights organization, the team announced Thursday, and will begin his comeback on a professional tryout agreement, according to league sources.

The announcement comes a day after Hart became eligible to sign an NHL contract under the terms of reinstatement the league established for him and four other former members of Canada’s World Juniors team who were found not guilty on sexual assault charges at trial in July.

Hart, who has not appeared in a game since January 2024 with the Philadelphia Flyers, is allowed to practice and make use of the team facility while he ramps back up, before becoming eligible to play AHL games on Nov. 15. The goal is to get Hart to a place where he’ll eventually join Vegas, according to league sources, with Dec. 1 the earliest date he can appear in an NHL game.

The 27-year-old became an unrestricted free agent upon his reinstatement by the league last month and received expressions of interest from several NHL teams. He carries the potential of again becoming a No. 1 goaltender, although it’s not known how the extended layoff will affect his play.

Hart’s 227 career NHL appearances are more than every goalie his age except Jake Oettinger of the Dallas Stars, and his career .906 save percentage is six ticks above the league average from last season.

The trial involving the 2018 World Juniors players revolved around what took place in a hotel room between the players and a then-20-year-old woman on June 19 of that year, following a celebration at a bar in downtown London, Ontario. Hart, 18 at the time, was the only player to testify in his defense.

After the acquittal, the players were not immediately cleared to return. On Sept. 11, the NHL announced that the players could sign contracts with any NHL team, with the contracts able to be registered on Oct. 15 and the players eligible to appear in games starting on Dec. 1.

Why the Golden Knights organization?

Hart’s two main priorities were finding a competitive team that could offer him a lane to a meaningful role in its crease.

The Carolina Hurricanes and Utah Mammoth were among other interested suitors, according to league sources, but neither had a situation as enticing as what he saw in Vegas.

Not only are the Golden Knights a perennial contender, but they also have been deploying Adin Hill and Akira Schmid between the pipes. Last season, that duo, plus the since-departed Ilya Samsonov, combined to finish 12th in the NHL in team save percentage with a combined .903.

Hill earned Conn Smythe votes while backstopping the Golden Knights to a Stanley Cup in 2023 and is paid $6.25 million per season on a contract that extends through the 2030-31 season, but in last season’s playoffs, he had an .887 save percentage over 11 games before the Golden Knights were eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers in Round 2. This season, he had an .845 save percentage before suffering a lower-body injury Tuesday. His timeline is unknown.

Schmid has a .929 save percentage in 2025-26, but he has only 50 career NHL appearances under his belt at age 25.

Against that backdrop, there’s a path for Hart to help the Golden Knights in the second half of this season, assuming he’s able to hold up his end of the bargain on the performance end of things. A second-round pick of the Flyers in 2016, his only previous playoff experience came in the 2020 COVID-19 bubble, where he was excellent, with a .926 save percentage in 14 games.

Signing Hart to a tryout gives the Golden Knights flexibility to make an eventual contract fit under the cap. He is expected to eventually sign a one- or two-year NHL deal, per league sources, which would leave both player and team flexibility while he tries to reestablish himself as an NHL starter. That would give Hart a healthy runway to play games behind a high-quality team and also leaves open the option for the Golden Knights to sign him to a longer-term extension as soon as July 2026 if the partnership yields immediate results. — Johnston

What the Knights are getting in Hart

Starting with the obvious, Vegas is getting a rusty goalie who hasn’t seen game action in well over a year and a half. Ask any goalie coming back from even a multi-week absence, and they will talk about the difficulties of readjusting to the speed of the game. That will be magnified for Hart to an extent we rarely see in the NHL.

If Hart can return to his previous form, he is an athletic goalie with some flaws in his game, but he is capable of making game-changing saves. The 27-year-old thrives in chaos, using his athleticism and quick reactions to make sprawling saves on broken plays or backdoor shots. He’s particularly good with his glove hand in these situations and will make 10-bell saves more often than most goalies.

Hart’s six seasons in Philadelphia were a bit of a rollercoaster statistically. He started strong in his first two seasons, then struggled majorly from 2020 to 2022 with minus-31.34 goals saved above expected, which ranked 121st out of 122 goalies during that span. He bounced back with slightly above-average numbers in 2022-23 and 2023-24 but never reached the level many expected after his start in the NHL.

Hart isn’t the biggest goalie, and he tends to make himself smaller in the net in certain situations. He’s often early to drop to the butterfly or reverse vertical horizontal (RVH) and has a compressed posture in those positions to leave room in the top of the net. He can also get a bit flat along the goal line in his post leans, which has the same effect. His physical tools allow him to make saves with his compete level — and playing deeper along his goal line enables him to make some saves others can’t — but it’s fair to wonder if he will have the same speed and explosion after nearly two years away from hockey. — Kevin Kurz and Jesse Granger