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Sam Ersson playing himself onto Four Nations radar

Team Sweden may need a replacement goaltender for the Four Nations tournament, and Sam Ersson is working his way onto their radar.

Apr 11, 2024; New York, New York, USA; Philadelphia Flyers goalie Samuel Ersson (33) celebrates a 4-1 win against the New York Rangers with center Travis Konecny (11) at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports

Sam Ersson is getting himself back on track. It’s been an up and down season for him — at times injury riddled, at others inconsistent in play — but now that’s he’s back on the ice again, he’s looking to hit the ground running.

His return to action against the Stars on Thursday was imperfect in some ways — he worked through a bit of rust, and the collective team effort never manifested enough to bring them even close to a win — but his effort was still quite solid, on the whole.

“Sam’s always been able to handle situations like this,” head coach John Tortorella said after the game, “that’s the most encouraging part for me because I thought he played really well. Hopefully he can grow off that. It’s not a result he wants but I think as a goaltender, especially the situation he’s in I just think he’s thinking about his game. We’ve pissed and moaned about our goaltending, [but we] don’t piss and moan about it tonight because I thought he played well.”

A win in that return to action would have been nice, to be sure, but the process was coming back together nicely, and that’s worth something. That was a sentiment that Ersson echoed after the game as well. “I don’t think this is a bad game,” he said. “Obviously we lose, we got to be better, but I got to be honest with myself, I don’t think it was a bad game. Obviously now, like you say, try to put some consistent performances together and hopefully we can come up with some wins.”

And things have been trending well since then — Ersson picked up the shutout in the Flyers’ 6-0 walloping of the Ducks on Saturday, and then he backstopped them to a huge win over the Panthers last night. It was a good win, but in some ways, also an unsurprising on, at least if you ask Tortorella. “At the end, he makes a couple big, during the third period he makes a couple big saves. And then at the end, I don’t know what the hell [Frost]’s doing, but he makes two or three great saves. Enough is enough with goaltending. Enough is enough. We need to be better, and I hope [Ersson] is trying to make a statement there.”

It was a statement made indeed, and all of this is coming at a time which couldn’t be more perfect. Last night, for that big matchup against the Panthers, Sam Hallam, the head coach of Sweden’s team for the upcoming Four Nations tournament was in the house, taking in Ersson’s showing. Because there’s the potential for a big opportunity in front of him — with Linus Ullmark out with an injury and still without a timeline for return, the Swedish team might just be in need of a replacement goaltender to add to their roster.

Ersson still has a ways to go to get himself all the way back to top form, and a ways to go still to make a no doubt about it impression on the roster makers for that squad, but last night’s performance was about as good of a first step as you can ask for.

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