With a full day off today after back-to-back games to kick off the preseason, things have been pretty quiet for the Flyers, but they did manage to sneak in one small happening into this otherwise uneventful day. Per the folks over at PuckPedia, the Flyers have signed goaltender Eetu Makiniemi to a one-year, two-way contract valued at $775,000.
Makiniemi is entering his age-25 season, and had spent the last two season in the Sharks’ organization. And those two seasons have really run the gambit in terms of results — in the 2021-21 season, he had a two-game showing with the Sharks at the NHL level and held up well there, but spent the bulk of his season (22 games) in the AHL, where he posted a .900 Save Percentage. Last season saw him replicate those results (a .900 SV% in 18 AHL games played) but also spending a three-game spell down in the ECHL.
Makiniemi had joined the Flyers for training camp on a PTO, and after showing well in the camp setting and in some limited game action on Monday in Montreal, impressed enough to earn himself a contract and a chance to stick around in the organization. Based on his history, we don’t really expect him to be factoring into the battle for a roster spot with the NHL squad out of camp in a major way, but with all that’s happened with Alexei Kolosov and his failure to report up to this point, and the growing necessity over the last few years to use the third and forth goaltenders in the organizational depth chart at some point, the Flyers needed to find a way to bolster their ranks a bit, and this is a fine way to do it.
We’re still very much in the early introductions phase with Makiniemi, but the early returns have been good, and it’ll be interesting to see how he fares as he continues to settle in with the organization.
