Last night’s game against the Flames was for the Flyers, in many ways, a doozy. An uninspired effort from the skaters, which amounted to a meager 18 shots generated (and only nine between the first two periods) on the way to a 2-1 loss and resulted in some largely measured but still pretty pointed criticism from their head coach, the Flyers put together a game which was, it feels fair to say, probably their worst of the season. And on the other side of that, they had Aleksei Kolosov, up from the AHL and making his first start for the Flyers of the season.
And this start for him was a bit of a strange one, as well. Coming off of a sound showing, coming into Saturday’s game for most of the remaining third period against the Leafs and stopping all seven shots they threw at him, the hope was that he could continue to build up some meaningful momentum with a good start, but it didn’t go as smoothly for him as he might have hoped. Just as the Flyers were struggling to generate offense on their side, the Flames were running into similar struggles, and only managed to put up 21 shots on Kolosov over the course of the evening. But even in that low output, they were still able to get two goals by him, on quite similar looking plays, as they seemed to find some success in exploiting one of the areas of his game which is the most a work in progress.
The first goal of the night developed off of a rush play, in which the Flames were able to, while not moving with a ton of speed, get into the offensive zone with control, and with three players sort of drifting into Kolosov’s sightline on the puck carrier, they were able to beat him cleanly with a shot from Jonathan Huberdeau from up at the top of the left circle.
Caught 'em by surprise 😏 pic.twitter.com/1ZK47VsN7g
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) November 3, 2025
His second goal allowed on the night looked pretty remarkably similar, as it saw the Flames setting up in front of the net, two players screening Kolosov, and the shot getting by him after it was fired in from the point and deflected in off of Huberdeau’s stick in front.
Jonathan Huberrrrrrrrrrdeau 🤌 pic.twitter.com/ukTPBeErKg
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) November 3, 2025
Now, it is incumbent on the defensemen in front to make a better effort on those plays to box out the Flames players in front of the net and create a better line of vision for Kolosov, but it also remains that this level of effort needed goes both ways.
“There was a screen,” Kolosov told reporters through a translator, “but that does not have to do anything with the goals, [I have] to see the pucks and make the saves.”
It was a tough hiccup to see, as it seemed a bit of a backslide into one of the worse habits Kolosov had been falling into in his time down with the Phantoms. That is, one of the more concerning weak points in Kolosov’s game going back to the AHL preseason was his troubles in locating shots through traffic — he wasn’t getting himself completely square to shots, looking more like he was approximating and hoping, and he wasn’t being particularly aggressive in his efforts to look around traffic when it was developing in front of him, and seeming to rather hope his defensemen would be able to come up with a block, or else just eventually get out of his way. Of course, through a more focused work over a consistent set of reps in starts, he was able to make some good progress in this area, had looked much sharper until last night’s outing.
Now, these two goals given up to the Flames were not easy ones to work against, with double screens and one fluky deflection in front causing a redirection, but across the whole of the game, it was tough not to come away with the feeling that Kolosov could have done a bit more on an individual level to put himself in more advantageous spots.
All the same, though, this was a showing that was enough to earn him a positive enough endorsement from his head coach.
“He was fine,” said Tocchet postgame. “You know, I think he was solid. I think they had five or six 5-on-5 chances, it’s not like they had a lot of chances, they just scored on two by the net.”
The strangeness that was his first season in North America might lend some extra weight to this first start of the season in the NHL for Kolosov, but all of the extraneous baggage doesn’t really change the reality of the situation at hand. That is, Sam Ersson isn’t looking like he’s going to be out long-term and Kolosov is up as the shorter term stopgap until he’s ready to return. He isn’t being thrust into a full time NHL backup role with the same expectation of more or less immediate delivery, but rather there’s an understanding that there’s yet a good bit in his game which still needs fine-tuning, and he’ll be able to get back to the more concerted work towards that aim before long. All things considered, Kolosov has played pretty well through his first game and change up with the Flyers, and there’s reason for optimism that he can find an upward trajectory similar to the one he tapped into in the early part of the Phantoms’ season, but this game too was perhaps a good reminder that in spite of that hot start, Kolosov still isn’t yet a finished product. All the same, there’s some valuable learning experiences unfolding here, and he’s in a better position this time around to take those lessons and immediately apply them in more regular starts back down with the Phantoms, whenever he is returned to them. We’ll see before long how he’s able to build from here.
