Flyers use final minor league call-up of the season on goalie Aleksei Kolosov
Kolosov, who hasn't been thrilled about spending time with Lehigh Valley, will get a chance to show he belongs in the NHL over the final 10 games.
There is an old saying in hockey that If you have two goalies, you have none. So what does it say when you have three?
The Flyers, owners of the NHL’s worst save percentage at .880, are open to finding out as they will once again carry three netminders on the roster. The team announced Tuesday that it recalled rookie Aleksei Kolosov from Lehigh Valley.
In calling up Kolosov, the Flyers have now used all four of their post-trade deadline call-ups. Any recall from Lehigh Valley or Reading from this point on will have to be an emergency-based move due to injury or illness. The Flyers used their first three recalls on Emil Andrae, Olle Lycksell, and Rodrigo Ābols on March 7 directly after trading Scott Laughton, Andrei Kuzmenko, and Erik Johnson at the deadline.
The rookie netminder joined the team in Toronto and was spotted at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday by PHLY Sports, although he did not participate in the morning skate alongside Sam Ersson and Ivan Fedotov.
Kolosov’s latest recall marks the most recent chapter in the ongoing saga between the Belarusian netminder and the Flyers. The tension between Kolosov and the Flyers started almost immediately after the 23-year-old arrived in North America last April following four standout seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League with Dinamo Minsk. Last summer, reports circulated that Kolosov was not happy about being in Lehigh Valley, along with his treatment there, and preferred to return to Belarus.
“I think on his end, it’s more about he wants to be guaranteed a spot in the NHL. If not, he prefers to stay over there, and that’s not the way we see it,” Flyers general manager Danny Brière said of Kolosov on the Nasty Knuckles podcast in August. “We agreed last year to loan him back for one year because he wanted to stay home. But at some point, you signed a contract, and we want him here. We want him to start integrating himself with the game the way it’s played here in North America, the smaller ice, and learning the language and all of that. And I guess he doesn’t see it that way at the moment.”
Kolosov later changed agents and was a no-show for the first day of training camp. He eventually changed course, reported to camp late, and accepted his assignment to Lehigh Valley to start the season.
“Aleksei is enthusiastic about joining the Flyers for the upcoming training camp,” his agent Daniel Milstein of Gold Star Sports Management told The Inquirer via text at the time. “All previous concerns have been thoroughly addressed and are now resolved.”
After he played four games with Lehigh Valley to start the season, the Flyers recalled Kolosov for the first time on Oct. 26 with Fedotov struggling. The Belarusian made his NHL debut on Oct. 27 in a 4-3 loss to Montreal and appeared in 15 games (11 starts) before finally being sent back to the American Hockey League on Jan. 22 — three weeks after his last appearance on Jan. 2.
Overall, he has posted a 4-8-1 record with a 3.45 goals against average and .870 save percentage with the Flyers. His best spell came from Nov. 23 to Dec. 12 when he won four of five starts and posted a .917 SV%. Kolosov, who has a .884 SV% in 12 games this season with Lehigh Valley, later spent all of February with the Flyers but did not play in a game before being sent back to the Phantoms on March 6.
» READ MORE: John Tortorella changes tune on goalie Sam Ersson: ‘As we move forward, we’re hoping it’s going to be a tandem’
In an interview in early March with The Inquirer, Brière hinted at issues with Kolosov, saying that having him with the Flyers and not in the AHL developing was “not ideal, but I’ll leave it at that.”
While Kolosov hasn’t set either league on fire, the 2021 third-round draft pick has played better since his last demotion, posting a 3-2 record with a .902 save percentage for the Phantoms. He also can’t play any worse than Fedotov has lately, as the 6-foot-7 goalie allowed nine goals on 32 shots in two games over the weekend. Ersson hasn’t been much better, as he has logged just a .842 save percentage in six March appearances.
John Tortorella recently said the Flyers are “evaluating” everything with Ersson and Fedotov given their inconsistent play. With 10 games left, beginning tonight in Toronto, the Flyers have added Kolosov to the evaluation list.