Editor’s Note: This article has been amended to properly reflect Carter Hart’s status.
March 29: Fedotov is in Philadelphia and will meet with media alongside Briere in a press conference at the team’s practice facility Friday morning, Chris Johnston of The Athletic and TSN reports.
March 28: In a surprising development coming out of the Kontinental Hockey League, CSKA Moscow has terminated the contract of Philadelphia Flyers’ goalie prospect Ivan Fedotov. The reasoning became clear shortly thereafter, as Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman confirmed that Fedotov will finish his season with the Flyers.
The news comes as a bit of a shock, as it was only seven months ago that the KHL, NHL, and IIHF held a lengthy battle over the contractual rights to Fedotov for the 2023-24 season. As it would turn out, under pressure from his native country, Fedotov would spend the majority of his year in the KHL.
After the announcement became public from CSKA Moscow, it was unclear if Fedotov would be coming over to Philadelphia, as the General Manager of the team, Daniel Briere, declined to comment at today’s media availability regarding Fedotov’s status. Nevertheless, as a precursor to Friedman’s confirmation, Sports Express in Russia did initially report that Fedotov would be leaving for the NHL.
With only one year remaining on his current contract, Fedotov will become an unrestricted free agent this summer if Philadelphia does not sign him to an extension before July 1st. In the league’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NHLPA, a player is eligible to hit the unrestricted free agent market once they hit 27 years of age, or have accrued seven years of experience at the NHL level.
Although there will be a bit of an adjustment coming over to North American hockey, Fedotov should be able to play himself into the starting role with the Flyers relatively quickly. In 44 games for CSKA Moscow this season, Fedotov produced a 21-22-1 record in 44 games but did carry an impressive .914 save percentage and 2.37 goals against average.
Since Carter Hart left the team in late January after being charged in connection to an alleged 2018 sexual assault involving multiple members of that year’s Canadian Men’s National Junior Team, Philadelphia has been operating with Samuel Ersson as their starting option, with Calvin Petersen and Felix Sandstrom seeing time in the backup role. Proving to be a volatile option, Ersson has produced a 9-8-4 record in 21 games with a .880 SV% after taking over the top job.
Still trying to lock down a playoff spot with nine games remaining, the Flyers could get quite the jolt with Fedotov between the pipes. However, even if the team is unable to secure a playoff spot, they could view it as an important trial run to see if they would like to continue their relationship with the netminder.
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@DarkSide830 — Me too ! ! !
2 Rusky goalies in 2 days!!!!
Season saved!
Very nice! Michkov too? Lol
Genuinely thought, this is huge for us. The Flyers have no viable backup goalie right now. if Fedotov can play to, like, even a .875 SV% then he can be a real asset for us down the stretch.
& there’s no book on him mostly. Maybe he gets hot & becomes the starter in playoffs. Doubtful but Ersson hasn’t been going great. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Getting in playoffs still gonna be tough.
What a journey this guy has been on. Happy for him!
I don’t think it’s fair to give too much criticism of Ersson’s play. First off, he’s a rookie and for most of the year he was the best goalie on the team even with Hart present. There were articles written before Hart’s leave of absence that Ersson was 1A and Hart 1B. Since the Allstar break the Flyers have had one of the toughest schedules and trades and injuries have depleted the defense. They’ve also had to play Ersson a lot as neither Petersen nor Sandtrom have done even remotely well as backups. Ersson is better than his numbers show.
That depleted defense still has allowed Ersson to face only 28 shots per 60 minutes. What his numbers show is that he’s been a sieve, and that by rights he ought to still be in the AHL developing his game doesn’t change the fact that the Flyers would be very comfortably in a playoff berth with even average goaltending out of him.
Look at his weird splits in wins vs losses. It’s Jekyll and Hyde like. He’s really good in wins and really bad in losses. The best comparison I can think of was the pitcher AJ Burnett in the 2000s in baseball where when he was having a good day he was a top of the rotation ace talent and on bad days he was like a 5th starter. I think with experience Ersson will be more consistent.
Ersson has the second best goals saved above expected in the NHL so his numbers show the opposite of him being a sieve. The defense is bad, he’s keeping the Flyers in games
They finally found a capable Backup Goalie with huge starter upside!!