At one point in the not-too-distant past, it sure seemed as though the Flyers had an embarrassment of riches at the position of goaltender. Fast forward to today and it sure doesn’t seem to to be the case anymore.
After the other guy left the team mid-season last year, it seemed like a sigh of relief that 2021 third round pick Aleksei Kolosov was set to make the jump to North America after signing his entry-level deal during the summer of 2023. He played two games with the Phantoms to close out the 2023-24 season before media reports surfaced in his native Belarus that he was unhappy with his brief experience with the Flyers organization. After a standoff during training camp he eventually made his way back to Pennsylvania where his 2024-25 season has been nothing short of a complete disaster.
As the 23-year-old sits on the main roster doing absolutely nothing, one has to wonder what the next steps are with Kolosov? So would they consider trading their top prospect in 2025? Let’s weigh some pros and cons.
Pros
They’re not actually utilizing him
Kolosov hasn’t played in the NHL since January 2 and hasn’t suited up in the AHL since January 29. He’s made a combined 22 appearances between the two leagues during the 2024-25 season. He’s been on the main roster since before the Four Nations break but is thoroughly third on the depth chart behind Ersson and Fedotov. And they clearly don’t want to send him to, and keep him in, the AHL to just let him get acclimated to the North American game. He’s not playing, he’s not developing, he’s not learning or improving, he’s just cashing main roster pay checks for doing nothing to help today or the future.
Get rid of the headache
Kolosov has been a rather large distraction for the last calendar year. Between the foreign media circus he started when he returned home last season to holding out during training camp to barely trying when he reports to the AHL against his will, the NHL-or-bust mentality has grown quite stale very quickly, especially since he can’t back up his words with his play. For a team that loves culture so much, he sure seems like the obvious distraction at this point and it may just be better to deal with him now.
Cons
He does have upside
Giving up on a 23-year-old goalie whose ceiling is potentially high won’t be a popular move in hindsight no matter the turmoil he’s causing at the moment. Folks still talk about Sergei Bobrovsky nearly 15 years later, so if Kolosov goes elsewhere and succeeds, regardless of the context now, it won’t look great on Briere’s résumé.
Is he worth anything?
Riding on potential is neat and all, but considering his numbers in his short time in North America are nothing short of a catastrophe, trying to leverage him for even just a higher pick than they selected him with may be hard to do. Selling him for less than the third round pick they drafted him with is a net-negative valuation. But is it worth it just to cut the cancer out?
Conclusion
The Flyers haven’t exactly been great at developing prospects over the last handful of years… or quite frankly ever. But even by their own low standards, the handling of Kolosov has been a total mess.
Briere held firm during the fall and training camp and refused to loan him to the KHL, which left Kolosov with little option but to submit and made the trek to North America under duress. It sure seems like they’ve been walking on eggshells with the guy ever since, even though the players’ leverage is limited at best.
Kolosov reported to the AHL a couple times this season, but it sure didn’t seem like he was giving it his all during the combined seven games he played down there (as evidenced by his 3.59 GAA and .874 SV%), and he just isn’t ready for NHL-level action (3.45 GAA and .870 SV% in 15 appearances). If he’s not willing to spend time on himself and develop, the Flyers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he just spent the season in the AHL and tried to get better he could’ve very well been a full-time NHLer in 2025-26 based on the continued uncertainty of the Ersson/Fedotov duo.
Ersson and Fedotov are both under contract in 2025-26, and based on how not great the duo has been this season, the Flyers may very well have to look outside the organization for a potential starter if they want to make the playoffs again, which would only push Kolosov further down the depth chart.
And some of the blame could very well be on the Flyers’ organization. They’ve basically said they’re against hiring translators, even for someone like Matvei Michkov, and just have their skills coach Slava Kuznetsov doing it instead. And with no Russian/Belarusian speakers in the AHL, it could make fitting in a more difficult task than it already was, which seemed to be high on Kolosov’s complaint list at the end of last season.
And to be fair to Kolosov, AHL demotions tend to be a one-way street when it comes to Flyers’ prospects. So him throwing a tantrum has at least kept him in the NHL, has given him opportunities to start and he’s cashing big league paychecks even when he’s laying dormant. It’s fairly impressive manipulation on his part and would’ve been even more so if he was able to handle the big leagues.
The biggest question is what Kolosov is actually worth in a trade? He’s still filled with theoretical potential, but hasn’t shown it in North America. Could a rebuilding team like the Ducks take him in as a project? Possibly as part of a trade for John Gibson? That would certainly be the most ideal way to part with him. Or is this a case of trading him just because he’s stepped on everybody’s toes over the last year and they just settle on recouping a draft pick for the guy just to get rid of him. Wouldn’t be the first time the Briere regime would willingly lose a trade in the name of protecting the culture.
They could just terminate his contract on the condition he goes back to Russia. It’s not a totally uncommon thing to see with international players. But then nothing would be stopping him from signing elsewhere in the NHL in a year or two.
This whole situation and the drama surrounding it has been making headlines for the last year now, and as the 2024-25 season starts to close out, they are seemingly not further along in determining where Kolosov actually fits in with the organization. And any outcome to this wouldn’t really be surprising. If he comes back next season and plays hot potato between the NHL and AHL again, if he just accepts a trip to the A and plays every night to develop for a chance in 2026-27, or whether they trade him for something (anything?) this summer. One way or another, the Flyers organization needs to come with with a real strategy for this guy, because whatever it is they’re doing this season isn’t helping either player or team be better.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: Getty Images
brotherlypuck.com 