Carter Hart is 4 wins from the Stanley Cup. The Golden Knights still don’t want to talk about his past

RALEIGH, N.C. — In October 2025, three months after he and four other players on Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team were found not guilty of sexual assault, Carter Hart spoke for the first time as a member of the Vegas Golden Knights.

At the time, Hart was ineligible to play in the NHL, part of a punishment the league applied to all five players for what it had determined was “deeply troubling and unacceptable” behavior, regardless of the Ontario Superior Court’s decision. Hart spoke non-specifically about how he’d learned and grown during his 20-month suspension, and about his plans “to show the community my true character, who I really am and what I’m about.”

Eight months later, Hart’s career trajectory has shot skyward, positioning him as the starting goaltender for the Western Conference champions. He’s in the hunt for a Stanley Cup title and in the running for the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP. Yet Hart’s media availability this season was limited largely to postgame appearances, and he has shared little about the follow-up to those plans from October.

The on-ice element to Hart’s story has changed. The arc of his career has, too. From the moment Vegas signed him, amid the heavy scrutiny the move carried, the team has largely shielded Hart from questions about his past — and now, months later, the public is still without any real sense of what he may have learned or the nature of the work he said he has done.

On Monday, as part of the NHL’s pre-Final media day, Hart was asked one such question by The Athletic, about what he meant in October when he mentioned learning and growth since the verdict, and whether that had continued in the ensuing months.

“I’ve learned a lot,” Hart said. “I’ve grown a lot since then. And I’ve been able to meet a lot of good people in the community, and I think the Vegas Golden Knights Foundation has done a really good job of making it easy for me to integrate into the community and meet a lot of cool people and — just really fortunate to be here in Vegas.

“And it’s a great culture of people, and like I said, I met a lot of cool people, and I’m just very fortunate to be here in Las Vegas and with this group.”

A member of the Golden Knights’ communications team ended Hart’s availability immediately after that answer, cutting off a follow-up attempt. He’d spoken for approximately six minutes of what was scheduled to be a 15-minute block.

It was not an unexpected move. In late September, while Hart was working out with the Golden Knights but before he was eligible to sign an NHL contract, the team declined to allow then-head coach Bruce Cassidy to speak to a reporter from The Athletic after learning that the goaltender was to be a topic of discussion.

Several minutes later, before Cassidy began a news conference, the spokesperson pulled that 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 also said The Athletic had “ambushed” defenseman Noah Hanifin during routine locker-room media interviews that morning and the team was not “comfortable” allowing the reporter to cover the game.

Hanifin had shown no irritation with the questions.

“Whenever you’re in a locker room with guys, you’re brothers, you’re family,” Hanifin said as part of the exchange. “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.”

On Monday, Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon was asked about the thought process behind signing Hart to a two-year, $4 million contract. He took issue with the notion that the 27-year-old goalie came with baggage.

“We went through a lengthy process of due diligence with Carter,” McCrimmon said. “Carter is a really good person. He’s ingrained himself in our community. He’s a player that I’ve known a long time, long prior to him becoming an NHL player. Playing very well. Obviously a big part of how our team is at this point that we’re at today, and he’s fit in seamlessly with his teammates.”

Hart, Michael McLeod, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote were acquitted of all charges by Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia in a London, Ont., courtroom on July 24, 2025.

All five players had been charged with sexual assault in connection to an alleged incident in June 2018 in which a woman known publicly as E.M. — her identity is protected by a publication ban — said she was sexually assaulted over the span of several hours in a London hotel room. The players were in town for a Hockey Canada event celebrating their victory at the World Junior championships earlier that year. McLeod had also been charged with being party to the offense.

In her decision, Justice Maria Carroccia said the Crown had not proven its case and that she could not find E.M.’s evidence “credible or reliable” — a legal threshold distinct from a finding of fabrication.

“Having found that I cannot rely upon the evidence of E.M. and then considering the evidence in this trial as a whole, I conclude that the Crown cannot meet its onus on any of the counts before me,” Carroccia said.

When charges were brought in January 2024, Hart was the most successful NHL player of the defendants, establishing himself as the Philadelphia Flyers’ starting goaltender and putting up a .906 career save percentage. He is the only one of the five to have signed with an NHL team since the trial’s conclusion.

Hart was also the only player to take the stand, where he admitted asking E.M. for oral sex and was grilled about the steps that he and others took to keep her in the hotel room during the early hours of June 19, 2018.

In messages Hart sent to a group chat after the players learned Hockey Canada was investigating the incident — as they discussed how to respond —  he asked whether police were investigating. “Honestly boys, nobody did anything wrong,” Hart texted. “Like we got consent to anything that she did. She was the one begging for guys to bang her.”

Hart testified in court that the only sexual act he observed that night was the oral sex E.M. performed on him.

In September, the league announced that, based in part on the results of a third-party investigation, the players would not be eligible for NHL games until Dec. 1, and that their conduct fell “woefully short of the standards and values that the League and its Member Clubs expect and demand.”

By Dec. 2, Hart was back in net for an NHL team. On Tuesday, he’ll start Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. The latest the series can end is June 17; the shield stopping him from answering questions — not just about his past, but his present and future — is likely to stay in place.