One of the Philadelphia Flyers’ top prospects is leaving the KHL and coming over to North America. No, not that one; the other one.
Announced via a post on Dinamo Minsk’s Instagram account, Flyers goaltender prospect Alexei Kolosov is officially leaving the KHL behind and is heading over to North America and will finish out his season playing professionally over here.
The Flyers signed Kolosov to his three-year, entry-level contract last summer, and then promptly loaned him back to his hometown team in Dinamo Minsk, to continue his development overseas. Kolosov answered the shown trust in him being a factor for the Flyers, with a solid season, earning a .907 save percentage and 2.39 goals against average through 47 games. He also stopped almost everything in his team’s postseason effort, posting a .925 save percentage and 2.21 goals against average through six playoff games.
Kolosov, 22, was selected in the third round of the 2021 NHL Draft and since then, has been an ultra-reliable starting goaltender in one of the best hockey leagues in the world.
What happens now? Despite a desperate need for some good goaltending behind Sam Ersson at the NHL level, the Flyers will most likely bring Kolosov in to start his North American pro career with the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms and go from there. Cal Petersen has been better since being sent back down to the minors a couple weeks ago, but Kolosov’s development should take precedent and he should start the majority of the Phantoms’ remaining 11 games of their regular season. If that isn’t the case — since this is just pure speculation — and the Flyers do bring the 22-year-old Belarussian to start in the NHL, well then they must really like him right now.
Of course, Kolosov and the Flyers first need to figure out his work visa and shuffle through some paperwork to make him eligible. Recently, Minnesota Wild’s Marat Khusnutdinov came over from the KHL and he was able to play roughly a week after coming over and signing his contract.
In the broader sense, if everything goes smoothly, Kolosov should have a leg up on just about everyone else to win over the Flyers’ backup role next season and the team’s entire NHL tandem will have a cap hit of $2.375 million. That’s some tidy business to get some young potential in between the pipes.
