from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

Amid the Blueshirt surge, second-year blue liner Adam Fox, ex- of Harvard, has emerged as a bona fide Norris Trophy candidate as the game’s top defenseman. That’s rare territory for a 23-year-old who has logged but 120 regular-season games, and three more in the playoffs.

The Rangers haven’t had a Norris winner since Brian Leetch bagged his second in 1997. And as tough critic Larry Brooks noted recently in his New York Post column, only Bobby Orr won the Norris (the great Orr’s first of a record haul of eight) two years into his career.

The beauty of Fox, noted Brooks, is in “the way his game sings.”

Which is to say Fox is fast, smooth, and has superb command of the puck, be it lugging and moving it on offense, or using his smarts and filching skills in the defensive end to lead the transition game. Only two years removed from playing at Harvard’s Bright-Landry Center, he has shaped quickly into a heady, elite NHL backliner.

read on for more on Fox plus other topic including,

The Flyers announced Thursday that Carter Hart, once their franchise wunderkind goalie, was shut down for the season. He had not played since wrenching a knee two weeks earlier.

Hart, 22, appeared the last two seasons to be the answer to years upon years of Flyer goaltending prayers. But this season, the former Western League standout regressed dramatically — 9-11-5, 3.67 goals-against average, .877 save percentage. Those are nearly beer league numbers and won’t provide Hart much leverage in contract talks.

Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher now must figure a way forward, unsure if Hart is the real deal, and also in need of toughening up a club that was far too easy to play against, especially when there was still hope in March of making a run at a playoff spot.