There is an unfortunate aspect of the unknown. With nothing to root your feeling on — nothing to really grasp onto as evidence to feel a certain way — you can be left floating uncomfortably and then diving head-first into extreme, reactionary thoughts that you blurt out with just the mention of a name.
But, the other side of that coin is that there is nothing to really show you that you’re wrong for thinking negatively about a situation. You can’t be truly judged for being impatient and assuming that this is what it is. If all that you know about something is a whole lot of things going wrong, then who can blame you for the bad, awful feelings?
So, Ivan Fedotov.
The gargantuan Philadelphia Flyers netminder that made his way from overseas, escaping a terrible military service situation and getting out of his KHL contract so he can try his luck at making the NHL for a team that desperately needed some solid goaltending after their bona fide starter got charged with sexual assault — and that’s not even being overly dramatic about the situation — has not been good. Fedotov, through five NHL appearances between the end of last season and then two starts in the first four games of this 2024-25 campaign has earned an .815 save percentage and a monumental 5.46 goals against average. The 6-foot-8 netminder is simply a walking “L” for what he has done so far.
And in his most recent showing, the blame was almost entirely put on him. A 6-4 loss to the Seattle Kraken to complete the Flyers’ season-opening roadtrip began with Fedotov allowing a goal from defenseman Brandon Montour that made it look like the goaltender physically had a hole through the middle of his torso. For someone so large, we guess the five-hole is even larger. And the rough goals continued. Through the first two periods, Fedotov allowed five goals on just 24 shots.
Now, it might not be totally fair to put the entire blame on Fedotov. The Flyers’ defense has just dissolved from what it was last season into a discombobulated mess visually, and when it comes to actual numbers. At 5-on-5, this team is allowing the second-most shot attempts, fourth-most unblocked attempts, eighth-most expected goals, and fourth-most shots on goal against (all on an average of per 60 minutes). That’s a poor, poor defensive showing from a team that was fairly decent in that areas just last season.
But, if we really want to blame goaltending, according to MoneyPuck, Ivan Fedotov has a goals saved above expected — essentially taking the total expected goals that a goaltender faces and then seeing how many actual goals they allow — of minus-3.9. That is remarkably terrible to have in just five periods of hockey.
Among all NHL goaltenders this season, that is the third-lowest GSAx, but it gets even worse. As mentioned, considering that Fedotov has been on the ice for just five periods, the other two goaltenders who have put in worse overall performances are Stuart Skinner (with three games played, minus-3.9 GSAx), and Alexandar Georgiev (four games, minus-9.5 GSAx). So, either there is a goalie for a very good team that has put in the same performance as Fedotov in nine periods compared to just five, and then a monumental collapse of a netminder over there in Colorado.
So, with all that information, where can the Flyers go from here?
Give him some time
We want to be nice. We don’t want to bring out the torches and pitchforks out quite so early into the season. Looking at the positive of this whole situation is that Fedotov can eventually be much better. Like we said, the unknown is uncomfortable and with so little to go off from when it comes to the goaltender, we can only assume that what he is showing us is what he is.
But, since there is so little evidence of anything else, we can imagine a world where he eventually gets better. He might just be statistically the worst goaltender in the NHL right now — we’re assuming Georgiev can show a little bit more, like he has in the past — so there is only one way to go up from here.
This feels like the most logical and realistic situation that the Flyers will take. They have invested in this man and were committed enough to give him a two-year contract so he can hang around and experience the best hockey league in the world. They wouldn’t do that if they thought he wasn’t even capable enough to be in the NHL (at least we hope not). And just two games into the season, there is enough time against terrible teams where we can let Fedotov get his sea legs while staying up with the Flyers.
Like we have said on this very website, and the team has said in multiple media availabilities, this is a season of figuring things out and finding things out. If after several more appearances, Fedotov shows us nothing but this and he sinks the Flyers further down in the standings, then we have all collectively found something out. But, we can’t see the team doing anything drastic quite yet with so much other context added — or do they really not want to waste months of their time with Fedotov up here?
Make the decision for him, go find your game in the minors
If the Flyers really don’t want to spend the next several weeks allowing more goals than they should because they want to be nice and commit to their commitment, and have a difficult conversation, they could just go ahead and send Fedotov down to the AHL.
Now, after just five periods of hockey? We probably won’t see that happen. But if this continues even for just one or two more games? That likelihood certainly increases.
Flyers general manager Danny Briere and head coach John Tortorella should be able to communicate to Fedotov well enough to make this be a good thing. There have been plenty of examples of players who are really struggling, who are then sent down to the minors to find their game once again. Cole Caufield is the first one that comes to mind after he was just shooting blanks for a month and then had to score multiple goals a game for the Laval Rocket through a stretch.
Especially with Fedotov coming straight from the KHL to the NHL, with zero stops in Allentown, this can be seen as just really trying to make him comfortable with the higher pace of the North American game. It’s like a training session beyond practices between games. A conditioning stint but not for health, but performance.
And who could come up in his place? We highly doubt that the Flyers want to throw Alexei Kolosov to the wolves and after making just one start this season for the Phantoms, where he allowed three goals on 25 shots, the 22-year-old would just instantly be the backup. No, it could be Cal Peterson or Eetu Makiniemi coming in. Two guys with varying levels of NHL experience and who we have zero expectation of. Just come hang out, and you might just win a job if nothing changes.
Go with the three-goalie approach
Now, we can just take these two ideas and mash them together in a gooey and sticky mess.
We can understand that the Flyers don’t want to be drastic and make Fedotov feel unwelcome if he is sent down to the AHL and has to go hang with Kolosov for a little bit. But, we know that these games still matter and the team wants to not be losing because of one guy. So, they can let Fedotov chill out a bit and bring up someone like Makiniemi to try their hand at directly competing for the backup position.
Make it a friendly bout between two goaltenders who are in their mid-20s and could certainly end up being Sam Ersson’s short-term support. We have seen the Flyers do this to start the season last year, so this isn’t something foreign to them, and with Ryan Johansen’s contract terminated (we will see where that goes with the grievance being filed) the Flyers have enough cap space to bring up Makiniemi’s league-minimum salary of $775,000.
In turn, the Flyers won’t be accruing as much cap space as they probably want, so they can fend off potential performance bonuses from Matvei Michkov’s entry-level contract, but if it means a couple more wins on the board, then they could potentially do it. Give a guy a chance because clearly, the guy they currently have in that role right now is not playing well enough to warrant nothing happening.
Something has to give eventually. If this continues for even just one or two more games with the large Russian in between the pipes, there will be a growing dissatisfaction that will feel too large to handle without something even more drastic than either of these potential solutions.
We hate to be in wait-and-see mode, but that’s where we are right now.
