Despite an excellent rookie season in the KHL, Philadelphia Flyers goalie prospect Egor Zavragin has yet to prove himself in the eyes of some experts.
After starting the season 3-3-0 with HK Sochi and owning a .941 save percentage, Zavragin, 19, re-joined his parent club, SKA St. Petersburg, and effectively became the KHL powerhouse's full-time starter.
The Flyers' 2023 third-round pick played a total of 37 regular season games for SKA, posting a 2.55 GAA, a .912 save percentage, and a 17-11-3 record to go along with three shutouts.
Zavragin's fellow netminders, Artemi Pleshkov and Pavel Moysevich, combined for 17 wins in the 41 games played between them, and Zavragin is younger than both.
But those stats at that age with that kind of responsibility didn't do much for him in the eyes of Scott Wheeler, one of The Athletic's NHL prospect experts.
In Wheeler's latest rankings of the top 20 drafted goalie prospects, Zavragin managed to rank just 17th, ahead of only Carl Lindbom, Jakub Dobes, and Lucas Beckman.
But, what's interesting is that Zavragin still placed in Wheeler's second tier, which spanned from No. 3 goalie Trey Augustine down to No. 18 goalie Lindbom.
Despite his low ranking, Wheeler was plenty complimentary of Zavragin's game and didn't note any negatives, which should come as good news for Flyers fans eagerly anticipating the Russian prospect's arrival in the coming years.
Still, given his extremely young age (still 19 despite being drafted in 2023, born Aug. 23, 2005), Zavragin has a much longer developmental runway than some of his counterparts on the list, and he's already nearing a dominant level of play in a league like the KHL.
Some of this year's draftees, like Joshua Ravensbergen, Pyotr Andreyanov, and Jack Ivankovic, all placed inside of the top-10.
And, somehow, Devon Levi, the second-oldest player on the list, placed seventh despite failing to cement his place in the NHL on a team like Buffalo.
Effectively, yes, while all these goalies are talented, it's hard not to feel like Zavragin was slighted, even just a little bit, in the rankings, but the Flyers and many of their younger prospects are happy to be the underdogs.
As an aside, Wheeler ranked five 2025-drafted goalies ahead of Zavragin, and many of you who follow me online or followed my draft coverage here know that I was adamant about the Flyers taking a goalie with one of their top picks, including as high as the first round, with the poor performances all throughout the organization and perceived uncertainty around the NHL futures of Aleksei Kolosov and Ivan Fedotov.
And Zavragin is actually the most recent goalie the Flyers have drafted, too (alongside draft classmate Carson Bjarnason), so, it makes you wonder. Philadelphia basically has all its eggs in those two baskets right now.
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