The Philadelphia Flyers have been apart of some truly tangled webs over the last few years, from the Ryan Ellis saga to the Kevin Hayes debacle and the Ivan Fedotov-KHL hysteria.
It’s been an unnecessarily frustrating 12 months regarding the prospects and whereabouts of Fedotov, but it has been officially announced that CSKA Moscow have assigned him to their roster on their originally sought after 2-year deal.
With Ryan Ellis, he was injured after the 3rd game of the season in 2021-22, went from a day-to-day designation to a week-to-week to a 4-6 weeks timeline to out indefinitely. It was later discovered that he had injured himself in one of the preseason games and his return to the ice was too be determined. By March of 2022, he was finally ruled out for the season but surgery wasn’t in the cards. The hope was that he would still be able to make it in time for the 2022-23 season but after it was discovered that he suffered a psoas tear, his career was in jeopardy. Surgery is still not on the horizon and it seems like he will be an LTIR casualty for the foreseeable future.
With Kevin Hayes, it started with a benching early in the season against San Jose, and it happened again in December against New Jersey before officially being made a healthy scratch the following game. Hayes’ play drew the ire of the coaching staff – as well as the fanbase – and for whatever reason the two never saw eye-to-eye after that. His play deteriorated, his heart left the building, and the writing was on the wall for a trade. St. Louis entered the conversation, it took a couple days of suspense, but a trade finally came through – just not the one we had hoped for with a potential blockbuster nixed.
Things are different in relation to Ivan Fedotov but at the end of the day, the 6’8” goaltender will not be suiting up for the Flyers for the next couple of seasons. Although it was somewhat expected just based on the timeline of events, it’s still disappointing considering the skill, size, and talents that Fedotov possesses.
He was detained in Russia last for trying to evade his military service, was then sent to the Arctic to serve for a year, rumblings came out that CSKA Moscow was going to retain him even with the Flyers still holding onto his rights, and after a few days where it seemed that maybe the tides had turned, we’re back to square one with the KHL overstepping the line ever so slightly.
The intricate details regarding his position and whether or not he’d be returning was always confusing. Fedotov’s contract was pushed into 2023-24 thanks to the CBA so the Flyers were largely in control at that moment. Fedotov originally signed his ELC without breaching his KHL contract or his rights but was wrongfully detained for trying anyways. However, going back to March of 2022, the NHL suspended it’s dealings with the KHL, effectively cancelling their memorandum of understanding (MOU) after their invasion of the Ukraine – this move in effect was going to make things very difficult for NHL teams to sign players from Russia.
Due to the cancellation of the memorandum of understanding, the KHL didn’t do anything wrong by the books or by the rules but the NHL had hopes that the understanding could’ve been held in spirit. The NHL did believe that Fedotov held a valid contract and Bill Daly indicated those sentiments earlier, so actions could be taken by the NHL at some point in the near future.
The KHL disagreed with the NHL’s assumption and thought process and registered Fedotov’s contract with CSKA Moscow anyways. The KHL hadn’t overstepped the boundaries before as this signals the first move of it’s kind.
CSKA Moscow’s Preisdent, Igor Esmantovich posted his statement earlier:
The Flyers still have Carter Hart tending the twine with backup options in Samuel Ersson, Felix Sandström, and Cal Petersen, and then prospects in Alexei Kolosov and recently drafted Carson Bjarnason and Egor Zavragin in the system. Fedotov looked like a fantastic prospect and his 2021-22 season brought about a lot of hope for the future in goal in Philadelphia.
It was never meant to be with political intervention getting in the way and now we turn our attention to Matvei Michkov and see how things pan out with his situation – at the very least something to not fret about with his contract going through 2026.
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