The Flyers’ path forward with Ivan Fedotov

It hasn’t been an easy season for Ivan Fedotov, or an easy career for that matter. His journey to the NHL was a long and fraught one, delayed by an arrest and forcible enlistment in the Russian military. When he finally got to the United States and made his NHL debut for the Flyers on April 1 last year, he was already 27 years old.

The former KHL player didn’t have a great performance in his first games with the Flyers. His debut three games, played just days after he arrived in Philly, had him at a 4.95 goals against average (GAA) and a save percentage (SV%) of .811. This shouldn’t have been surprising.

Fedotov had no AHL stint to adapt to North American hockey, because he was desperately needed to back up an exhausted and overworked Sam Ersson. He had lost his most valuable development years, the period of his mid 20’s where the Flyers would have been shaping him into the goalie they needed, through no fault of his own. It has undoubtedly impacted his performance and the trajectory of his career.

The three horse race between Ersson, Alexei Kolosov, and Fedotov in the first months of this season threw another spanner in the works. Sure, the three goalie thing paid off nicely during Ersson’s time off with injury in November. But once John Tortorella publicly announced the goalie pecking order, with a decided preference for Kolosov as the number two before the first month of the season was over, Fedotov didn’t get a look in.

Instead of sending Fedotov down to the AHL, where he could get some playing time and work on his game, he was shoved in a dusty closet – probably the one they keep Gritty’s costumes in. This was seemingly out of the irrational fear he\'d be claimed on waivers, but it meant he was getting no ice time and barely any reps in practice. Tortorella was (some may say pigheadedly) determined to keep going with the younger Kolosov as second despite his struggles, and when he finally had no choice but to use Fedotov, the goalie had been kept cold for a month.

Despite this dismal asset management, Fedotov has performed fairly well since then! Well enough by the standards of Flyers goaltending at least. Well enough that he was upgraded to the official second, and earned public kudos from the head coach. Even well enough that the front office finally sent Kolosov down to the Phantoms to get the development time he needs.

With a healthy Ersson as the starter and Fedotov as the back up, the Flyers goaltending has moved from league-worst to 28th worst. Fedotov is now sitting on 3.21 GAA and has an .881 SV% overall this season, and his last five games are a lot better at 2.71 GAA and .891 SV%. The question now is: has the 28-year-old been a good enough back-up to keep him on the roster next season?

The Finnish-born Russian goalie’s two-year contract with an annual cap hit of $3.275 million will expire at the end of the 2025-26 season, so it’s not like the Flyers are tied in long term. The cap hit won’t be too painful with Joel Farabee’s contract off the books now (farewell, sweet prince). Another year will hopefully allow Alexei Kolosov time to develop into a solid backup, one who can fill in until promising goalie prospects like Carson Bjarnason and Yegor Zavragin are ready.

As it stands currently though, Fedotov is actually not the worst backup in the NHL. We’re talking actual backups here, not tandems doing a 40-60 or 50-50 split. Amongst those, Fedotov is definitely sitting in the lower end, but he’s still not bottom five. By save percentage, he’s actually 21st out of 28, and in terms of goals saved against average (GSAA), he’s 22nd out of 28 with a -7.17.

It’s not great, but there is still a chance of improvement. If that improvement doesn’t happen though, it’s worth looking at what the Flyers options are. Technically, there are only three paths: trading, waiving, and a buy-out, but each of them come with their own complications. Let\'s have a look at some of them.

One option would be a direct trade for a goalie, but if they’re trying for an upgrade, it wouldn’t be one-for-one, especially with Fedotov on an expiring deal. The Flyers would likely need to throw in a sweetener or two, be it a draft pick or a prospect they’re ready to move on from. Even then, finding a team willing to trade a decent back-up is rare, unless the team already has two good goalies and are just looking for a good home for their third, or the goalie in question wants out of there ASAP.

Another potential route would involve acquiring a decent unrestricted free agent, or Kolosov taking a big step forward. It’s too early to know who will already be re-signed come July, but there’s a number of solid goalie options set to become UFAs this summer. Perhaps the Flyers get lucky like the Leafs did last summer with Anthony Stolarz, but they’ll settle for someone who can play 20-30 games a season with an above .895 save percentage.

If the Flyers do have an alternative number two, Fedotov could be dealt as part of a bigger trade package to acquire key pieces needed for the rebuild. They’d probably need to retain a little bit of salary for this though, and their ability to do that will be dependent on whatever moves they make at the deadline or in the summer.

In the event that Fedotov’s performance plummets next season and it’s just untenable, they could waive him. Whether he gets picked off the waiver wire is impossible to say right now; we can’t know what team will be in dire goalie straits next season and willing to take a 28-year-old pending UFA.

After that, if things are really bad, you come to the buyout route. It wouldn’t cost a lot, as the bulk of the contract’s value was in the signing bonuses, but it would involve a cap hit of $2,758,333 for a year. That’s not ideal, and it would be worth double checking all options are exhausted before resorting to that.

There are a lot of ways this could all play out. Hard as it is to remember when he’s twenty eight and six-foot-eight, this is Fedotov’s rookie season, and there’s every chance he could continue to improve. He’s already made a lot of progress since he began getting adequate practice, and he’s by all accounts a very determined and hard-working player. We could certainly see him bring his game up to league average for a goalie if given the chance.

The Flyers don’t need Ivan Fedotov to be the starting goalie. All they need is for him to be ready to play every third or fourth game and make enough saves to keep the Flyers in it. We’ve seen him do it, we know he’s capable of it, and that’s what we hope to see consistently from him in the coming months. But if worse comes to worst, the Flyers do have options.

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