NHL Three Stars: Lightning and Flyers Goalies Shut the Door as Sharks' Hertl Impresses

Adam Proteau lists the NHL's three stars of the week. The Tampa Bay Lightning's Andrei Vasilevskiy and Philadelphia Flyers' Carter Hart were top-notch in net, while the San Jose Sharks' Tomas Hertl was also on fire.

This is three stars of the week, a regular THN.com file in which we pick the three NHLers who had the biggest impact on their team in the past seven days. Onward we go:

The San Jose Sharks have been the worst team in the league this season, but they improved as a group this week, and the production on offense from Hertl is one of the key reasons for their improved performance. The 30-year-old Czech native posted five goals and six points in three games this week, improving his season totals to 14 assists and 23 points in 26 games.

Hertl has an average annual salary of $8.1375 million, running through the 2029-30 campaign. He’s on pace to post 28 goals and 72 points this year, which would be an improvement on his 2022-23 season, in which he generated 22 goals and 63 points. The Sharks need him to be one of their best players, and while San Jose has no chance to make the playoffs, Hertl can make them a tougher opponent than they’ve been thus far this year while he averages 20:56 of ice time per game.

Hertl’s smarts and soft hands make him arguably the Sharks’ top player – at least, as long as injured captain Logan Couture isn’t in the lineup – but his job now is to help bring along San Jose’s young players and turn them into competitors worth playing with him on the top forward line.

It was a very good week for a number of NHL goalies. Hart stood out as one of the best of the best, putting up a 3-0-0 record, 1.30 goals-against average and .958 save percentage. The 25-year-old netminder has helped Philadelphia maintain its strong start to the season, and Hart now has a 9-6-1 record this season in 17 appearances, in addition to a .919 SP and 2.42 GAA and one shutout.

Hart’s understudy, youngster Samuel Ersson, hasn’t fared as well, generating just an .885 SP in nine appearances. But if Hart can continue to do the heavy lifting in net for Philly, he’ll be in line for a major raise on his $3.97-million current salary. Hart will be an RFA next summer, but it’s highly doubtful the Flyers will even consider allowing other teams to put in an offer sheet for him.

He’s proven himself capable of responding well to adversity. Although many observers are still expecting Philadelphia’s overall game to regress, Hart is going to continue to make life difficult on the opposition’s offense.

It hasn’t been the best season for Vasilevskiy, who battled a severe back injury that kept him out of the Lightning’s lineup until late November. When he did get back into action, he lost three of his first four games and posted an SP of .893 or worse in those defeats. However, the 29-year-old Russian looked like his old, dependable Grade-A self this week, putting up a 3-0-0 record, 1.31 GAA, .949 SP and one shutout.

Vasilevskiy’s season stats thus far include an .899 SP, 2.70 GAA, and 4-3-0 record. With a cap hit of $9.5 million, he needs to keep improving for the Bolts to stay in a battle for a playoff position in the highly competitive Atlantic Division. But if he plays the rest of the year the way he played this week, the Lightning are going to surge through the standings and once again be a genuine Stanley Cup contender.

At his best, Vasilevskiy is a top-five goalie in the league, and even with a Bolts defense corps that’s been hit hard by salary cap constraints, he’s demonstrating that he’s still in his prime and can be a needle-mover for his team.