As the halfway point of the 2024/25 NHL season passes, it’s quite clear that goaltending has become a problem for the Flyers. Finding a true number-one center is crucial, and the lack thereof for the Flyers remains a huge, if not the biggest, problem for the Flyers.
However, the Flyers are carrying three goaltenders through the season, and none have proved that they can be a true NHL starting netminder.
That got me thinking…
“When Carter left, that threw this into turmoil…” Flyers head coach John Tortorella said Tuesday morning, talking about the team’s goaltending situation.
He is not wrong. Since then, the Flyers have had four different goalies play, none of whom earned the role of starting goalie.
Sam Ersson definitely has a leg up as far as who is closest to being the starter. Cal Peterson backed Ersson up until the unexpected arrival of Ivan Fedotov from Russia. Aleksei Kolosov followed Fedotov over to America but did not join the Flyers in the NHL until this season.
Cal Peterson has remained in the AHL for most of the second half of last season and all of this year, but since Kolosov got the call in late October, the Flyers have carried three goaltenders.
This has been partly justified by the injury-ridden season Ersson is having but is still crazy to think about. The Flyers are carrying three goalies with no stand-out number one.
The Flyers are the worst save percentage team in the league at .868%. They are sitting well below the Avalanche at .881%.
It has not been pretty for the Flyers. It is also not done by any particular goalie. Amongst the top-10 worst save percentages by goalies this season, the Flyers have number three, Aleksei Kolosov (.870), and number seven, Sam Ersson (.884). The third goaltender, Ivan Fedotov (.874), does not even qualify for the stat because he has yet to play enough games.
If he did qualify, Fedotov would own the fifth-worst save percentage in the NHL and bump Ersson to eighth.
This is a problem for the Flyers. Not only does the team have three netminders on the NHL roster, but each of them ranks in the bottom 10 in save percentage.
The fix for the now would be to send Kolosov down to the AHL to let him further develop and build confidence. Given how he got to the NHL this year, I doubt that happens.
Moving past that, the Flyers have three goalies in Lehigh Valley, none of which offer a solution right now.
Cal Peterson should never play in Philly again. He is 9-10-2 in LHV this year, with .882SV%. For an NHL veteran in the AHL, it is not a great sign of an NHL comeback.
Parker Gahagen has been an AHL journeyman. He is 3-1-1 so far this season with a .881SV% and 3.38 GAA. Gahagen is 31 and has never made it to the NHL in five seasons.
Eetu Makiniemi, who is 25 years old and will be 26 by the end of the season, is the youngest option the Flyers have in the AHL. Makiniemi is 3-0-1, with a .899 SV%, and a 3.03 GAA. Lehigh is the third stop in his four-year AHL career. In 54 games prior to his stop with the Phantoms, he has never had a save percentage lower than .900. Makiniemi is the Flyers’ best AHL option, but quite frankly, he may not be any better than what the Flyers currently have.
The Flyers have two goaltending prospects that stick out. Carson Bjarnason of the Brandon Wheat Kings and Yegor Zavragin in Russia. Both prospects are 19 years old and probably have a few years before making a true NHL impact.
Bjarnason will likely see the organization sooner. He will turn 20 this coming June and can begin his professional career in the AHL if the Flyers do not think he is quite ready to make the NHL roster this summer. Regardless, until the Wheat Kings’ season concludes, Bjarnason is out of the picture.
Before leaving for the World Juniors, Bjarnason had an 8-6-2 record with a .913sv% and 2.90 GAA. He is not a “premier” goalie prospect, but he is definitely intriguing and has a chance to make an impact in the coming season or so.
Zavragin is an interesting situation. Zavragin signed a three-year extension with Matvei Michkov’s former club, SKA St. Petersburg this past May. If he were to wait until his contract with St. Petersburg concluded, he would not be able to come to America until June of 2027.
Like Michkov, Zavragin was loaned to HC Sochi but has since been recalled to SKA and is getting playing time. As a 19-year-old, that is mightily impressive. In six games with Sochi, he boasted a .941SV%, which is how he earned his call back up to SKA.
With SKA, he is 10-5-0 and .915SV% and two shutouts. Zavragin may be the “premier” prospect the Flyers have been searching for, but it is unclear when he will be able to make it to the Flyers. One thing to keep in mind is the Flyers were able to negotiate the early arrival of Matvei Michkov; maybe they will be able to do it again.
This coming draft does not have any real “standout” goalies. If there is a goalie available with one of the Flyers’ second-round selections, which I expect there to be, I would not be surprised if the Flyers look to build up another prospect to be a possible long-term solution.
For right now, the Flyers will have to look to either make a trade or sign a free agent, which I do not see happening before next offseason.
