The Philadelphia Flyers season has not started yet. We’re still dozens of days away from rookie camp starting, and then a handful of days more until we actually get to watch NHL players on the ice at training camp to truly get a sense that the season is about to start. But, for one key Flyers prospect, he’s already getting in some games and looking pretty darn good.
Yegor Zavragin is a name that has become more and more popular among Flyers fans ever since he was drafted in the third round all the way back in 2023. The 21-year-old has gone from complete unknown to a goalie who could hold the fate of the Philadelphia crease in the palm of his hands. And lucky for us hockey-deprived folks, the KHL has started its preseason and Zavragin is taking part.
The Novosibirsk native was in between the pipes for Metallurg Magnitogorsk’s first game in Russia’s oldest preseason tournament, the Romazan Memorial and Zavragin’s team are playing host this year.
Metallurg blew a 2-0 lead against Amur Khabarovsk and then had to come crawling back to eventually win the game in overtime, but that’s not important. What is more important than the result is that Zavragin got to show off some anticipation skills and created a highlight of his own.
First, we have Matvei Michkov finally scoring a Michigan, in the Match of the Year charity game last month, and now we have Zavragin stopping a Michigan in some KHL preseason action. We’re really covering all the bases in trickshot goals that are taking place thousands of miles away.
Michkov’s own goal was impressive because of his read of the play and seeing how his opposing goalie was going to take the top of the net away from him, so he swopped in to score in the middle of the post. And maybe it was seeing Michkov score one in that fashion, or just that the Amur player telegraphing his move roughly 14 minutes before he actually got a shot on net, but Zavragin is extremely quick to get over and cover the entire post to deny the Michigan goal.
We have scoured the internet for any shot on goal data to see if Zavragin played well for the remainder of the game but we truly cannot find any. Nothing from the actual KHL website, or the third party scorekeeping apps and websites. Maybe he saved 38 of 40 shots he faced. Maybe it was a defensive clinic and he actually stopped just 10 of 12 shots. No one knows!
But the important thing is to focus on what is to come in the next several months.
This is a massive season for Yegor Zavragin
Zavragin has a big part to play in the future of the Flyers. While goaltending feels fairly stable with the arrival of Dan Vladar last year and him being one of the major reasons we even got to experience happiness last season, and now Joseph Woll in the mix to steady the ship even further and not have one of the NHL’s worst goalies as a backup, there is always the future. An injury here, some major underperformance there, a couple seasons of some bad goaltending we have come to know far too well; there always needs to be someone coming up next through the pipeline and that’s this 21-year-old Russian.
He has really been simply one of the best young Russian netminders over in the KHL in this decade and just has had the misfortune of being in an awkward three-goaltender system while playing for SKA St. Petersburg. Now, with an offseason trade to Metallurg, his path to be a much more regular KHL starter is so clear. The last time he did that, he earned a .912 save percentage in 37 games for SKA, and that was two years ago when he was still a teenager.
If Zavragin can take a step forward and really become one of the best goalies overseas no matter what, then it will be even more enticing.
We won’t be seeing him for a couple years though. Originally, his KHL contract went through next season and summer 2027 was the time when we all expected he would make the trip to North America and potentially battle for a spot on the NHL tandem right away. But with the trade, he has now extended his contract for another season and it will be 2028 when we assume he will be making his trip over to Philadelphia.
Which, works just fine. Woll’s contract will be up and unless the new Flyer suddenly becomes even better than Vladar, him at 30 years old is probably not getting extended. Then, a true battle can be had. Zavragin at 23 years old could certainly be in a young mentee role under Vladar, that we see so often around the NHL — until he eventually usurps his elder and is the Flyers bona fide starter, if everything goes to plan.
But for now, he has his next challenge of being given more of an opportunity on a new team in the KHL and he needs to run with it.
