LAS VEGAS and RALEIGH, N.C. — Of the 61 NHL goaltenders who started at least 100 games between the 2018-19 and 2023-24 seasons, Carter Hart’s .906 save percentage ranked 39th, wedged between Anton Forsberg and Philipp Grubauer. Fifty-three goalies saved more goals above expected than Hart’s 12.93 in that span.
Meanwhile, 452 skaters posted more points than Michael McLeod’s 85 in that same time span. He’s a career minus-17 player who’s averaged about 13 minutes per game.
But Hart was a No. 1 goalie in Philadelphia, a proven and reliable performer at a famously volatile position. And McLeod is a blazing skater and excellent at faceoffs, and, well, capable third-line centers don’t grow on trees. Both are just 27 years old, in their physical primes. Both are unrestricted free agents. Both can help any number of NHL teams.
But both carry significant baggage, and signing them could come at a cost that goes beyond finances.
Almost from the moment Justice Maria Carroccia of the Ontario Superior Court deemed the so-called Hockey Canada Five — Hart, McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote and Alex Formenton — not guilty of sexual assault at the end of a protracted and high-profile trial in July, much of the hockey world asked the same question: Would any NHL team sign any of these players? Or had their absence from the league been too long, the baggage too heavy, the potential public-relations backlash too severe?
It didn’t take long to get an answer. The Hurricanes are seriously considering signing McLeod, a bottom-six center who last had 10 goals and nine assists in 45 games with the New Jersey Devils in 2023-24. And both the Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights are taking a long look at Hart, the Flyers’ No. 1 goaltender for half a decade. The NHL decided that the players can agree to terms as soon as Oct. 1, can sign contracts on Oct. 15, and will be eligible to play in NHL games again on Dec. 1.
At this point, it’s only a matter of time.
“Those guys have been through the whole thing and came out acquitted,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “I’m sure all of them regret what went on and what happened but are moving forward and moving on.”
None of the players has played in the NHL since taking various forms of leaves of absence in January 2024, when the sexual-assault charges were filed against them stemming from an incident in London, Ont., during a celebration of Team Canada’s gold medal at the 2018 World Junior Championship. The trial lasted eight weeks, with several players’ sexual encounter with a woman identified only as E.M. laid out in detail. The trial often had a carnival atmosphere, with an early mistrial and Carroccia dismissing a second jury and opting to decide the case on her own. Ultimately, Carroccia determined that E.M. had given clear consent that night.
In the meantime, McLeod and Dubé played in the KHL last season, while Foote played in Slovakia and Formenton remained in Switzerland, as he already was out of the NHL. Hart stayed in North America, preferring to train closer to home. Even after the trial ended, the league delayed their on-ice returns until Dec. 1, saying “the conduct at issue falls woefully short of the standards and values that the league and its member clubs expect and demand.”
The Athletic visited both Raleigh, N.C., and Las Vegas in the past week to discuss the possible signings with each team. The Hurricanes acknowledged the gravity of the situation and were open to talking about it, even in somewhat awkward hypotheticals. Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour, for one, politely answered a few questions away from other gathered reporters following a practice on Friday. He pleaded unawareness of general manager Eric Tulsky’s plans but had no qualms about bringing aboard one of the newly reinstated players.
“Obviously, that’s news to me,” Brind’Amour said when told the Hurricanes were considering both McLeod and Hart. “Rumors are rumors. Every time there’s a player out there, they always say that our team’s involved. I haven’t given it much thought, but any player that comes here would be welcomed with open arms. That’s the only reason we’re bringing someone into this family. You’ve got to treat them like that. You’re talking about a hypothetical, but that’s how I would approach it.”
On the other side of the country, the Golden Knights took a different tack. The team declined to allow head coach Bruce Cassidy to speak to The Athletic one-on-one after learning of the topic. Several minutes later, before Cassidy began a news conference, the spokesperson pulled an Athletic reporter out of the room and told him to leave the team’s practice facility immediately. The Athletic’s press pass for that evening’s preseason game was revoked. The spokesperson said The Athletic had “ambushed” Noah Hanifin during routine locker-room media interviews that morning and the team was not “comfortable” allowing the reporter to cover the game.
Hanifin, for his part, showed no irritation at the questions (he was one of only two established players who made himself available for interviews that day). He said any player who joined the team would be shown love and support.
“Whenever you’re in a locker room with guys, you’re brothers, you’re family,” the veteran defenseman said. “You’re trying to take care of each other, no matter what’s going on, good or bad, off the ice. You want to make sure that when guys come to the rink, they feel they have the support and that they’re part of it. That’s a huge part of being on a team.
“Everyone that’s in this room right now, everyone has lives away from here. They have families, they have kids. When you come here, you’ve got to make sure everyone’s doing well mentally and feeling good. And if someone needs a hand or needs someone to talk to, that’s what your teammates are there for.”
That the Golden Knights, organizationally, were so on guard underscores the dicey nature of the decision facing Carolina, Vegas or any other team that chooses to sign one of the five players. On Tuesday morning, it was one reporter quietly asking somewhat vague and generalized questions. It’s not hard to envision what it’ll be like for any of these players following a morning skate in, say, Toronto, during the regular season.
Carter Hart leaves the courthouse on July 24, 2025 in London, Ontario, after being acquitted of sexual assault charges. (Cole Burston / Getty Images)
There are precedents for such a heightened media circus. In the summer of 2015, fresh off his third Stanley Cup championship, Chicago Blackhawks star Patrick Kane faced allegations of sexual assault in Western New York. The case dragged into training camp and the regular season. And even once the allegations were dismissed, Kane faced questions about the case in nearly every city the Blackhawks visited. Every road morning skate turned into an impromptu news conference at Kane’s locker stall. The swarms of reporters were particularly large and the questions particularly pointed in Canada, where the spotlight on hockey shines so much brighter than, say, Raleigh, Las Vegas or even Chicago. Some Blackhawks players privately groused about the frenzy, but it was mostly Kane’s burden to bear.
Brind’Amour doesn’t expect it to be any different should the Hurricanes sign McLeod and/or Hart.
“That’s on the player,” he said. “It does nothing for me.”
Staal faced a fraction of that scrutiny after his own teenage missteps. He’s never been on trial for his name and his career or had his sex life dissected in a courtroom, in barrooms and in newsrooms across the continent. And he’s never been out of the league for two years, wondering if he’d ever return, or if he’d ever be allowed to return. But he has been a young hockey star with the world at his feet, and he was arrested at age 18 for disorderly conduct, underage drinking and obstruction during his older brother Eric’s bachelor party in the summer of 2007. It was mostly late-night noise violations and harassing motorists. The charges brought against the players in the Hockey Canada trial were far more serious and far more high-profile.
But Staal, now 37, is trying to extend some grace to them as they try to restart their careers.
“Everyone makes mistakes, including myself,” Staal said. “As an 18-year-old kid, I’ve done some stupid stuff. I went to jail. I had to go through a lot of crap because of it, and it wasn’t fun. I had to go through some crappy times, but I owned it.”
Staal has at least an idea of what the reinstated players might be looking at, particularly on trips to bigger, more hockey-obsessed markets.
“Media guys all want a little piece of them, and everyone wants to write their own little snippet and not miss out on the juicy stuff,” he said. “That’s part of making mistakes, too.”
As the Hockey Canada trial wore on, the Hurricanes weren’t really entertaining the idea of signing any of the five players should they be acquitted. But the nature of Carroccia’s judgment — she spent hours dissecting and picking apart E.M.’s claims — changed the team’s mindset. A team source, who spoke to The Athletic on condition of anonymity so they could talk candidly about sensitive information, was very clear that the organization isn’t merely writing off the incident as just “kids being kids” but noted there’s a significant difference between distasteful and criminal. The matter of consent was at the heart of the trial, and Carroccia’s determination that there was clear consent opened the door to the team at least considering signing the players.
From there, it becomes a matter of risk versus reward. The risk of signing any of these players is evident — they haven’t played in the NHL in two years and come with a hefty amount of public-relations baggage. Already, a group of fans in Carolina has organized to send the message to the organization that signing Hart or McLeod would be a red line for them, and 1,300-plus people have signed an online petition urging the team not to sign the players. Still, it’s no surprise that some teams would consider Hart, in particular, worth the risk, given his pedigree as a second-round pick and his steady career in Philadelphia.
From a roster-building standpoint, Vegas seems the more logical fit for Hart. Adin Hill’s backup, Akira Schmid, has only 48 NHL games under his belt, with a modest .903 save percentage. Carolina, meanwhile, has both Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov on the NHL roster, neither of whom would likely clear waivers to make room for Hart. Andersen is in the last year of his contract, though, so it might be worth it to Carolina to keep three goalies in the meantime to have a long-term solution in net.
Hurricanes defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere played with Hart during the goalie’s first three seasons in Philadelphia.
“He was a really young guy when I played with him; he was our rookie, so to speak,” Gostisbehere said. “Great teammate, great kid. He’s obviously going through some stuff. But that’s the outside noise, and I’m sure he just wants to get back to playing hockey. If we do sign him, it’d be great. But we’ve got a good squad here, and I’m only going to comment on the guys who are in the room right now.”
McLeod isn’t nearly as high profile, but he can fill a need in almost any team’s bottom six. And for teams such as Carolina and Vegas that are chasing championships every year, any player could be the one who puts them over the top.
Players around the league, just like fans, are intimately familiar with the details of the Hockey Canada trial. But the players The Athletic spoke to were reluctant to draw any conclusions or make any judgments based on what they’ve heard or read. Hurricanes veteran Taylor Hall said any player who joined the team would get a fresh start, and a fair chance to prove himself a good teammate — and good person.
“Through the years, I’ve played with guys that you’ve heard things about,” Hall said. “You just do your best to give them a clean slate and to respect them as a teammate, and ultimately help them be the best teammate they can be to help us be a good team and win games. It’s not the end-all, be-all, winning games. But I’ve played with guys you’ve heard bad things about and they’ve been great. And then there’s guys that have a great reputation and they come in and you’re like, ehhh, not so sure.”
As for the scrutiny that surely will follow these players, at least in the short term, Hall said that’s just part of the job.
“Being an athlete, being a team, is about clearing those distractions out of the way and focusing on what’s in here,” Hall said. “If it ever came to that, I think we’d have chats as a team on how we’re going to handle it internally, the media, and then go from there.”
NHL players view their locker room as an almost hallowed place, their work a refuge of sorts. And outside issues — whether familial and financial or salacious and self-inflicted — are left outside. Gostisbehere called hockey “an escape,” saying that “you leave your problems at the door.” The inevitable return of Hart, and the likely return of McLeod, will be one of the sternest tests of that magic force field yet.
There will be disdain and disgust from some corners, there will be forgiveness and acceptance from others, and there will be scrutiny from all. But in the cold calculus of professional sports, the quickest way for the players and the teams that sign them to move on will be to simply play well. The questions surrounding Kane in the fall of 2015 died down by midseason, not just because the case had been dismissed, but because Kane was lighting it up each night on his way to an MVP season. Fair or not, right or not, he changed the narrative. The sports world’s attention span is fickle and fleeting like that.
“It’ll all depend,” Staal said. “If the outside stuff is affecting the game on the ice, then it definitely will come into the locker room. There’s no question. Guys might hide it well, and you might not know, but in a lot of ways, you can tell. When there’s stuff going on outside the rink and this person doesn’t have the same mood as he usually does, you might know something’s up, something’s going on at home. That’s where your teammates come in. We want to care for each other. That’s a big thing we’ve tried to get a lot better at, being a family in here. It would end up in the room and it would have to get sorted out. But we’d help our teammate, our buddy, get through it. That’s what being a team is all about.”
(Top photos: Rich Graessle, Christian Petersen / Getty Images)