LAS VEGAS — To be fair, it was arguably a chance worth taking. After seeing Ivan Fedotov’s training camp struggles, the Philadelphia Flyers pivoted on their decision with Aleksei Kolosov, allowing the young prospect to join the NHL roster after originally declining what seemed like a ridiculous request from the 22-year-old to skip the AHL and the experience of playing for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
The optics weren’t great. Having a prospect dictate to an organization how he prefers to be developed isn’t a great way for a rebuilding team to go about constructing a roster. But the Flyers desperately needed a goalie behind the unproven Sam Ersson, and when Fedotov continued to scuffle at the start of the regular season, it was an easy decision to give Kolosov a chance.
He should be out of them now.
A strong case can be made that Kolosov is the worst goalie in the league. After allowing four goals on 26 shots Thursday — at least two and probably three of which should have been stopped — he’s now dead last in the NHL in save percentage among the 56 goalies who have played at least 600 minutes this season (.870). According to Natural Stat Trick, his minus-10.31 goals saved above expected are tied for the second worst among that group — the worst being Alexandar Georgiev, who was already shipped to the lowly San Jose Sharks from the Colorado Avalanche.
Nearly midway through the regular season, and after giving Kolosov 11 starts and 15 appearances, it’s time for the Flyers not to be intimidated by the threats of a young player who clearly shouldn’t be here, and pull the plug. Even with Ersson on the mend, Kolosov shouldn’t see the net again at any point soon without first getting some time with the Phantoms. It’s not fair to the other players on the roster.
And if he’s not on board with going to the Phantoms, as it’s believed, so be it. He can return to the KHL. And if he still wants to be on an NHL roster when next season rolls around, he can come to training camp and compete for one like everyone else usually has to do.
There’s a mountain of evidence that Kolosov is just not an NHL-level goalie. That’s not to say he won’t be in the future, but he’s not right now. Not even close. Thursday’s game was only the latest to strongly reflect that.
Against the Vegas Golden Knights with the score tied at 1 in the second period, Kolosov was slow to react to a wraparound by Nicolas Hague, giving Vegas a lead it would not relinquish. It was Hague’s third goal of the season. The towering defensive defenseman is not a guy who should be freezing goaltenders.
didn’t have a Nic Hague wraparound goal on our bingo card, but here we are 🤩🦒 pic.twitter.com/mPsibPVokl
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) January 3, 2025
Late in the second, Pavel Dorofeyev overpowered Kolosov with a wrist shot from the circle that went underneath Kolosov’s arm, padding Vegas’ lead. Perhaps Kolosov was screened by Cam York, but it was still a shot that probably shouldn’t have gotten through him.
Then, less than three minutes into the third, it was fourth-line winger Alexander Holtz beating Kolosov up high from a distance to make it 4-1. It was Holtz’s third goal in his 38th game this season, by the way.
Even more frustrating from a Flyers standpoint is that they were hanging with the league-leading Golden Knights all evening, even outplaying them for stretches. Natural Stat Trick had the Flyers with 2.97 expected goals in all situations to 2.19 for Vegas. At five-on-five, it was a 2.64-1.83 advantage for Philadelphia.
Coach John Tortorella declined to evaluate Kolosov’s performance after the game. However, he did seem generally pleased with how the rest of the Flyers played in an eventual 5-2 defeat.
“I thought our forechecking was good. We made some mistakes, but for most of the 60 minutes, I felt really comfortable how we were playing,” he said. “We were checking forward. I thought (we) did a lot of good stuff in the offensive zone as far as keeping the puck. Score doesn’t indicate how the game was played.”
He’s right about that last part. A reliable netminder probably earns the Flyers, playing much better coming out of the Christmas break than they had been going into it, at least a point in that game, if not two. To their credit, they kept fighting even when they could have been quite demoralized from the consistently dreadful goaltending behind them, getting a Travis Konecny power-play marker to make it 4-2 in the third and earning another power play they didn’t capitalize on a few minutes later.
Tortorella said he didn’t give any thought to putting Fedotov in the game in the third period. But it should be a relatively easy decision for the Flyers coach to turn to Fedotov for the trip finale against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday, assuming Ersson remains day to day with a lower-body injury. The Flyers will have a practice in Toronto on Saturday, giving Fedotov, who hasn’t played since Dec. 5, time to prepare physically and mentally. Remember, this guy is making $3.25 million per season through 2025-26. He has to play again. Though his .877 save percentage isn’t all that much better than Kolosov’s, he’s 28 and has much more experience to lean on, even if it has come mostly in the KHL.
The other options, of course, aren’t ideal. But Phantoms goalie Cal Petersen has at least had success previously in the NHL, and he even gave the Flyers a few quality starts last season. It’s time to give him another chance, because as much as Petersen didn’t get the job done for the Flyers late last season, it’s hard to imagine he’s going to be worse than Kolosov. Let Fedotov and Petersen serve as the tandem until Ersson is back.
The Flyers have said over and over they prefer to win games during this process of building their team. They can’t keep saying that as long as they continue to run out a goalie who has shown he simply cannot play at this level.
(Photo of Nicolas Hague’s second-period goal getting by Aleksei Kolosov: Stephen R. Sylvanie / Imagn Images)
