Goaltending has reared its ugly head once again for the Philadelphia Flyers this season, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise since it’s been the one position of weakness for well over three decades.
After Carter Hart’s departure, things haven’t gotten any easier as Samuel Ersson was thrusted into an unenviable position of leading the charge for a downtrodden rebuilding team on a nightly basis.
He featured in 30 of the final 36 games in 2023-24 and when healthy he’s been in the net for close to 60% of the games this year. His up-and-down tendencies finally gave way for Ivan Fedotov to get in more games as we wind down towards the final stretch of the 2024-25 season but after last weekend’s performances, the situation has become even more questionable.
The Aleksei Kolosov experiment didn’t blossom any flowers this year either, which might have set the goaltending paradigm back further but the youngster was recalled yet again ahead of Tuesday’s game against Toronto – a game in which Ersson allowed 7 goals. The move perhaps signaled another shift in the crease moving forward.
While the Flyers patiently wait for their two budding prospects in Carson Bjarnason and Yegor Zavragin, they are now in an interesting position at the NHL level where they need to find plug-in options to bide time for the next 2-3 years as their youngsters churn their way through the Flyers pipeline.
Former head coach John Tortorella wanted to have Ersson acclimate himself as a number one goaltender, which is why he kept feeding him starts when maybe he should’ve given him a rest and played someone else. His up and down tendencies have showcased that he’s a fringe starter right now but if he were given more breaks and less games, he could be relied upon way more down the stretch. Unfortunately, the Flyers haven’t felt that has been the case with whoever has been backing him up in the last two years.
Fedotov was a budding prospect in Russia but since his arrival to the NHL, he’s been nothing more than a bag of mixed tricks. Of course, he went through a rough couple years after he was forced into the navy for a season, went under the radar for a year, and then was thrown on to CSKA Moscow with legal battles coming from the Flyers over his contract. There have been moments where it has looked like he finally has turned a corner, but then performances like his outings against Dallas and Chicago from last weekend shined a light on an everlasting problem.
Kolosov can be categorized in the same category but he complicated the situation upon his arrival last year. With the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the thick of a playoff race, Kolosov wasn’t given much run when he arrived with Cal Petersen entrenched as the de facto number one goalie. The ensuing summer led to a lot of reports about him feeling uneasy and potentially wanting to go back to Belarus if he wasn’t handed an NHL position.
He’s been up and down between the Flyers and the Phantoms all season but he hasn’t starred at either level. He’s posted a 4-8-1 record with a .870 SV% and a 3.45 GAA with the Flyers compared to a 5-6-1 record, a .884 SV%, and a 3.11 GAA with the Phantoms.
Nevertheless, the Flyers were comfortable in giving him the backup position earlier in the season, which led to Fedotov exiled in the press box for what felt like an eternity.
While it could be seen as an overreaction, last weekend’s performances from Fedotov cannot be swept under the rug. It truly feels like there’s been a colossal shift and that the hulking Russian has found himself very much on the outside looking in – and it wouldn’t be shocking if they tried to part ways either.
Both Ersson and Fedotov are entering the final year of their respective contracts next season, which is absolutely paramount to their futures in Philadelphia because of the emergence of Bjarnason and Zavragin. Kolosov is still an option but he still has a lot to prove as well with his lacklustre outings at both levels.
The Flyers schedule has only seven games remaining and it will be interesting to see if interim head coach Brad Shaw will give Ersson more games off. Fedotov was given five of the Flyers’ last eight starts before Ersson started last Tuesday’s blowout loss to Toronto, though the former has not seen the ice since last Sunday’s loss to Chicago. Perhaps more opportunities can be afforded to Kolosov as well to see where he’s at in his development.
If the Flyers enter the offseason with severe question marks surrounding both Fedotov and Kolosov, do they dip their toes into the free agent market for a stop-gap netminder to not only ease the pressure off of Ersson but to bide time for their rebuild to blossom?
Some of the names that could be available on July 1st include Ville Husso, Vitek Vaněček, Jake Allen, Alexandar Georgiev, Ilya Samsonov, and Dan Vladař. While the Flyers are rebuilding and they shouldn’t be looking to make extravagant moves, they need to make sure that the net is protected by decently viable options at the very least.
The unfortunate situation is that there are no young goaltenders available on the open market that make sense for the Flyers. Yaroslav Askarov found his way on the block but he was traded to San Jose before the season began and Spencer Knight could have been another option but he found his way to Chicago in exchange for Seth Jones.
Some of the aforementioned options won’t blow the door down but they will keep the Flyers defense somewhat centered and more importantly they will alleviate the workload from Ersson so he can better acclimate himself as a number one goalie.
They also won’t be expensive, nor will they haemorrhage the salary cap in any way. The Brian Elliott and Michal Neuvirth seasons should be a good reminder to the front office because that type of steady consistency is what the Flyers should look to achieve during the rebuild and it can be found on the open market.
They don’t need to run Ersson into the ground for a third straight year and he should be eased into his 55-60 game threshold if that’s what the Flyers still have in mind. Where things are currently situated, he’s at best a fringe starting netminder and it’s very apparent that they need someone more reliable as either the backup or Ersson’s 1B.
Fedotov still has one year remaining at a cap hit of $3.25 million so it’s not going to be easy to move if that’s the direction they choose to go through even with a rising cap. However, NHL teams are always taking risks on goaltenders who are down on their luck and Fedotov could be a reclamation project for a team that can shelter his mistakes.
The next few offseasons are going to be critical as they try to position themselves during their rebuild. Money won’t be an issue with the salary cap rising and the Flyers having plenty of it to burn so it all boils down on what’s available and where they are in their long-term plans.
It’s evident that they want to be more aggressive than a standard rebuild and they have worked the phones diligently over the last two years but nothing has really materialized in terms of making additions rather than subtractions – yet.
Their goaltending situation shouldn’t be any different next year but they need a better stop-gap option until Bjarnason and Zavragin are ready to make the leap, which might not be for another 2-3 years.
Zavragin played in 6 games for Sochi HC where he went 3-3-0 with a scintillating .941 SV% before being brought back from his loan to SKA St. Petersburg. He played in 37 regular season games with SKA and recorded a 17-11-3 record with a .912 SV% and a 2.55 GAA. SKA is currently down 2-0 in their playoff series to Dynamo Moscow, but Zavragin has an impressive .932 SV% and 2.40 GAA in both his appearances.
He was named one of the KHL’s Players of the Week a couple weeks ago for his terrific performances in goal and a lot more of the same is expected from the 19-year-old next season and beyond.
Being given this opportunity at just 19 years of age is one thing but it’s even crazier when you factor in the fact that he’s doing it in the KHL – where they don’t value youngsters as much – and for St. Petersburg which is a team that doesn’t really give their young players the platform to perform right away.
Bjarnason on the other hand is playing in the junior level for the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL. He performed admirably this past regular season posting a 22-15-3 record, a .913 SV%, and a 2.93 GAA, which propelled the team to fifth in the Eastern Conference. The Wheat Kings are currently battling the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the WHL Playoffs, where Bjarnason has a .855 SV% and 5.31 GAA in two games.
Coming in at 19 years of age as well, the Flyers have two blossoming teenage goaltending prospects in the system that they cannot afford to whiff on. They don’t need to force anything at the moment, they don’t need to push their development any further than what they’re being afforded, and they can sit back and wait a few years as the rebuild continues to churn.
It’s a lengthy process and one that Flyers fans aren’t necessarily used to when you factor in how successful the organization had been in the regular season between 1967 to around 2012. There’s a lot to be excited about and it starts with those two young netminders, who should both have very bright futures in Philadelphia.
Until then, the Flyers have to make things work at the NHL level with the likes of Ersson, Fedotov, and Kolosov unless they get finally tired of mediocrity and look for a better solution on the open market.
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