Flyers goalie Sam Ersson injured against Bruins, Aleksei Kolosov steps in
The Flyers netminder made a toe save on a shot that knocked his right skate blade off. Minutes later, he gestured to the bench to be removed and did not return.
Flyers coach John Tortorella said on Thursday he wanted to get a look at goalie Aleksei Kolosov.
On Saturday, he got his wish — although probably not how he wanted. The 22-year-old Belarusian goalie entered the 3-0 loss against the Boston Bruins midway through the first period when Sam Ersson left with an apparent injury.
“I thought he fought,” Tortorella said about Kolosov. “It’s a [heck] of a spot. I mean, the whole goaltending situation. I thought he fought.”
The Flyers said Ersson would not return and during postgame revealed he suffered a lower-body injury. Tortorella did not have a further update when he spoke to the media but NHL insider Elliotte Friedman reported on Sportsnet’s Hockey Night in Canada’s Saturday Headlines segment that the Flyers are “looking at about a week” of Ersson being out.
With 13 minutes and 12 seconds left in the period, Ersson made a toe save on a shot that knocked his right skate blade off. After waving at the referees, who stopped play, assistant equipment manager John Peters replaced it, and play continued.
But something wasn’t right with Ersson. After appearing to be testing something out in a commercial break, the broadcast showed the goalie shaking his head at the bench. The puck was dropped at 12:24, but the whistle quickly blew. Ersson skated over and spoke with head athletic trainer Tommy Alva, who was there with referee Peter MacDougall. The goalie motioned to his left leg as Kolosov stretched on the ice behind him.
Ersson left the game after making eight saves. He had won his last three starts, and the Flyers entered the game on a two-game win streak, including a 2-0 victory against the Bruins in Boston on Tuesday.
The game marked Kolosov’s second appearance this season. He made his NHL debut in a 4-3 home loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday in which he made 20 saves. Third-string goaltender Ivan Fedotov was the emergency netminder for the remainder of the game.
Kolosov finished the game with 20 saves on 22 shots. He allowed goals by Matthew Poitras and Justin Brazeau in the first and second periods, respectively. Speaking postgame through Slava Kuznetsov, a team consultant, the young netminder said he is “more understanding of the game so feel a lot better today in the game.” He is still getting acclimated to the high net-front traffic the NHL plays.
“He made some big saves,” said captain Sean Couturier. “He kept us in. They were outshooting us at some point, and most of the game, and he kept us in there and gave us a chance. That’s what you want from your goalie.
“Don’t know him a whole lot yet, but he fights for pucks and doesn’t give up. I like what I’ve seen.”
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Now the focus moves to Ersson.
Losing their No. 1 goalie for any period of time leaves a massive hole for a Flyers team struggling to find wins. Ersson is the only Flyers goalie to get in the win column in the team’s first 12 games, including Saturday. After starting the season slowly, he has accumulated four wins and seen his goals-against average drop to 2.68 and his save percentage rise to over .900 (.901).
The biggest sting is that Ersson was just finding his groove. Since Oct. 26, he was 3-0-0 in four starts with the sixth-best GAA (1.92) and seventh-best save percentage (.925).