Shaw says Karsen Dorwart will make NHL debut in Montreal, Kolosov starts before season’s end

It looks like Karsen Dorwart will make his NHL debut Saturday night in Montreal while Aleksei Kolosov will get a start sometime before season’s end.

Michigan State's Karsen Dorwart shoots against Notre Dame during the second period in the Big Ten tournament on Saturday, March 15, 2025, at Muni Arena in East Lansing.

Following Wednesday’s practice, interim Flyers head coach Brad Shaw said recent Flyers signee Karsen Dorwart will most likely make his NHL debut Saturday night in Montreal. Shaw said Dorwart made a good first impression in the practice with his speediness.

“He moves well,” Shaw said of the NCAA forward. “I asked him the first time I met him, ‘What’s your best asset?’ And he said his head, his brain, he really thinks the game well. That’s a great answer for me, I like guys who are aware on the ice. But I was impressed with how he got around today. It’s not easy sometimes your first day, there’s a lot of nerves out there. Seems like a really centered, focused, and humble young man. So we’ll see how it goes. It’s always different practice to a game, there will probably be some nerves again there for him. He seems like a really good young man. A real high character type of guy.”

When asked about what the plan was for using Dorwart the remaining six games, Shaw said he’d start in Montreal and would play in all situations. “He played in those situations at the college level. I would think at a certain point he plays a little of everything. He’s definitely going to play in Montreal and beyond that I’m not sure what the plan is as far as deployment. I’ll sort of get the marching orders from above, but we’ll talk and sort it out and try and make sense of it. And put him in the best situation possible to show us what he can do.”

Dorwart, who Shaw said “looks like a worker to me,” will be on the fourth line with Nic Deslauriers and Garnet Hathaway as his linemates. The newcomer said he had some teams interested in him but Philadelphia’s brass of Danny Briere and Keith Jones “showed a lot of interest” throughout his year with Michigan State. Briere and Jones also explained the opportunity he might have up the middle given the lack of quality centers the Flyers current have. Dorwart, who got his medical tests done Tuesday, also spoke after practice about how warm and inviting the other players were during the practice.

That culture or atmosphere is something Shaw attributed to John Tortorella, specificially with how tight the locker room is after losing Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, and Scott Laughton in this calendar year. “There’s been people that left in the last month or so that create voids, but it’s still a great room. It’s still full of very professional athletes that know how to treat their teammates. That’s a real luxury to come in when I did when that room is sort of taken care of to the extent that it was. I’m not surprised that he was greeted with open arms. I’d expect that go forward and expect that to happen with any new guy that comes in here.”

Shaw also spoke about the remaining practices and how he makes portions of practices into competitions. The coach said he picked the idea up from working with Ken Hitchcock when Shaw was an assistant coach to him in St. Louis. “He was big with starting with a great drill and ending with something competitive. I find when I run practices or I have a chance to run drills…all you have to do is keep score and things get competitive with these clowns out here. That’s all you have to do, just tell them you’re keeping score. You don’t even have to keep score. Just tell them you’re keeping score and all of a sudden it almost gets dangerous how much effort goes in and how much focus goes in. They’re so ultra-competitive. I think you can get a lot done with real simple drills.”

Elsewhere, Shaw said Aleksei Kolosov will probably get a start in one of the remaining six games this year. “Yeah, we plan on playing him,” he said. “There’s lots of different scenarios right now, not sure when that is but we anticipate him playing a game.” If Kolosov gets a game it will be his first since a 5-2 road loss to Vegas on Jan. 2. Kolosov has four wins this season, with a goals-against average of 3.45 and a save percentage of .870. Currently, Kolosov’s span of no NHL action sits at 37 games. He’s played 12 games with Lehigh Valley in the American Hockey League.