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Kolosov Signs ELC with the Flyers
Goaltending prospect Alexei Kolosov has signed an entry-level contract with the Flyers. The highly regarded 21-year-old Belarusian netminder, whom the Flyers selected in the third round of the 2021 NHL Entry Draft (78th overall) has made rapid progress since he was drafted. He made his KHL debut at 18. By age 19, he established himself as a starting goalie at the KHL level.
On many nights over the past two seasons, Kolosov has been his Dinamo Minsk team's best player. Dinamo is far from a powerhouse in the KHL but the young goalie has consistently kept his team competitive in games. In 2022-23, Kolosov appeared in 42 games with a 13-21-5 record, 2.55 goals against average and .912 save percentage.
Kolosov is widely considered to be one of the top young goalies playing in Europe, and a player with future No. 1 NHL goaltender upside. He's not especially big (6-foot-1, 190 pounds) but he's athletic, and capable of spectacular saves.
The Flyers' plan with Kolosov appears to be to loan him back to Dinamo Minsk for the 2023-24 season and then to have him come over to North America for the 2024-25 campaign. Kolosov's agent acknowledged this pathway as the immediate-term developmental strategy via Twitter.
Not want to comment anything else and want to stop any further speculations. Kolosov will start and finnish the season with Dinamo Minsk. We want to thank Flyers on their trust and Dinamo Minsk for their understanding and helping with next step to fullfiling Aleksei' dreams.
Having Kolosov under NHL contract while on loan in 2023-24 will burn the first season of his three-year entry-level contract. However, it also has several benefits. It provides Flyers staff including goalie development coach Brady Robinson with a regular contact schedule with the player and the affords the Philadelphia organization greater certainty over when Kolosov will arrive to play in North America.
Aleksei Kolosov #Flyers 3rd RD pick (78th overall) in 2021 3 year ELC
The Flyers currently have a crowded goaltending situation in the NHL and AHL, between No. 1 goalie Carter Hart, fast-rising prospect Samuel Ersson, recently acquired veteran Cal Petersen (who has two seasons to go on a contract with a $5 million cap hit and a 10-team no-trade list), and Felix Sandström. This is another reason why it makes sense to loan Kolosov to Dinamo for one more season.
Back in 2017, the Flyers drafted another Belarusian goalie, Kirill Ustimenko, in the third round (80th overall). He, too, showed some early promise although he wasn't a prodigy on the same level as Kolosov. Nevertheless, Ustimenko came over to North America at age 20. He lost his entire second North American pro year to the pandemic and injury. Overall, Ustimenko spent more time playing at the ECHL level with Reading (50 games, where had some success) than in the AHL with the Phantoms (13 games, where he often struggled). He left the organization in 2022.
With Kolosov, there seem to be a more well-defined progression plan in place. The personable Ustimenko (who, at 24, is back in the KHL and trying to work up from backup to No. 1 status) had talent but Kolosov is the better goalie with both the higher long-term upside and the superior developmental curve from ages 18 to 21.
It is unfortunate that Belarus, which is basically a satellite state to Vladimir Putin's Russia -- officially independent with a similarly heavy-handed (and hockey-loving) president at the helm, but heavily influenced politically, economically and militarily -- is under the same IIHF bans as the Russians. That has prevented from Kolosov from playing at the top international men's level tournaments. However, in games against the Russian national team and in previous Division 1 tourneys, Kolosov more than held his own.
Kolosov is a very athletic qnd aggressive goalie. When he has to make a desperation save, he comes up with some dandies. This post-to-post save from last season shows off some of the Kolosov's quickness as well as poise under the pressure of a grade A scoring chance.
In this 2022-23 season clip, Kolosov makes a pair of saves, including a full-extension pad save on a rebound at the doorstep. The save was featured on several leaguewide season highlight clips on the KHL YouTube channel.
******* Fedotov Signs with CSKA
On the same day that the Flyers got Kolosov under contract, they seemingly lost out on a final hope of bringing towering Russian goalie Ivan Fedotov over to North America after tolling the unfulfilled NHL contract the player signed last summer as a KHL free agent. Yesterday, over the objections of the Flyers and the NHL (represented by deputy commissioner Bill Daly), the KHL elected to certify a two-year contract Fedotov signed with CSKA Moscow this summer.
The player's new KHL contract had been held up temporarily while the NHL presented the case for the KHL to respect the enforcement in 2023-24 of the tolled NHL contract that Fedotov signed last summer. Laughably, the KHL declared that Fedotov's NHL deal -- the very one that the Russian authorities prevented him from honoring -- expired as of July 1 and the league was under no obligation to respect that the Flyers' tolling of the original contract predated CSKA's filing of a new KHL deal for Fedotov.
The significance of this step by the KHL goes beyond Fedotov. Last year, the NHL canceled its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the KHL after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The KHL is not a "typical" pro hockey league in that its power structure is inextricably tied to the Putin regime and his closest oligarch allies. It cannot be said, for example, that SHL is an extension of the Swedish government or that Finland ties Liiga hockey into political ambitions or Czechia advances nationalist "patriotic" propaganda via anything that goes on in Extraliga. On the flip side, the very creation and subsequent history of the KHL is almost impossible to treat solely as a sport league: it was, and still is, deeply tied with Putin's and his internal allies' broader hopes and ambitions on both the domestic and global stages.
While there are many European hockey federations that grumble about their respective transfer agreements with the NHL -- believing the arrangements are too one-sided in favor the NHL and the transfer fees are still too low -- the Russian Hockey Federation/ KHL was the first to pull out of the arrangement brokered between the NHL and IIHF with the member federations. This happened shortly after the KHL was created.
At the time, many other European hockey federations silently (in a couple cases, not-so-silently) applauded the Russians for taking that step while themselves reupping their transfer agreements when the time came to do so. However, the KHL's aggressive expansionist agenda soon soured some of those sympathies. The other European leagues were not sad that the KHL's annexation of Jokerit Helsinki and Slovan Bratislava, among other strategically selected clubs, did not result in the KHL becoming THE pan-European powerhouse hockey league or an equal rival to the NHL. For example, Finland's Liiga survived (after some very uncertain times) and now Jokerit is back in the Finnish league.
The KHL's attempted contract war with the NHL was a failure, although some very prominent players such as Ilya Kovalchuk with SKA St. Petersburg and Alexander Radulov with Salavat Yulaev Ufa and CSKA Moscow made boatloads of money and spent much of the primes of their careers in the KHL after departing the NHL. Over time, the struggles over contract jumping and salary inflation were not beneficial either to the NHL or the KHL.
There was never a new formal transfer agreement signed. However, both sides realized there didn't have to be one. In its place, the MOU worked fine. Essentially, it was a simple agreement for the NHL to respect valid KHL contracts for their duration and for the KHL to do the same with NHL contracts. While tensions periodically arose, there was relative peace and systematic player transfers from one league to the other.
Then came Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In 2022, the National Hockey League cancelled the MOU with the KHL. This was done because of how closely tied the Russian government and economic oligarchy are to the KHL. From a practical standpoint, however, there hasn't been a huge difference. The NHL and KHL still maintained the non-interference arrangement with each other's contracts. That arrangement has held for over a year.
The whole Ivan Fedotov saga is a challenge to that relative stability. Last summer, after the Russian national team starting goalie completed his KHL contract with CSKA, he signed a one-year NHL contract with the Flyers. Originally drafted by Philadelphia in the seventh round of the 2015 Draft, Fedotov was a late bloomer who had a rather lengthy path to becoming a KHL starting goalie, much less the national team starter and an NHL candidate at age 26.
Shortly after signing with the Flyers, Fedotov was arrested and detained by Russian authorities for non-compliance with a mandatory military service obligation. He was conscripted and assigned for a one-year stint on a naval base in northern Russia. It really didn't have anything to do specifically with Fedotov's long-time desire to play in the NHL (years earlier, as a 19-year-old, he'd even attended a Flyers Development Camp in Voorhees). It was all about making an example of someone amid a crackdown on avoiding military service.
Again, context is needed here. There has long been large-scale corruption baked into that system. It was (and probably still is) hardly unusual for professional athletes and others of sufficient means to buy their way out of military duty. Pay the requisite bribe, obtain forged paperwork from officials and be on your way with no interruptions to your hockey career.
Fedotov wasn't the only one caught up in it. Late last summer, three other professional hockey players, including former Flyers center Mikhail Vorobyev, were implicated in a corruption case involving an official at a military registration/recruitment office and a local businessman who was a taking a cut. Vorobyev and others were told it would cost roughly $2,800 to get them out of military service. Once the "fee" (read: bribe) was paid, forged paperwork would be generated to state that all obligations were met.
Vorobyev pleaded guilty and received a relatively lenient sentence of a $33,000 fine. Another player involved in the case received a five-year suspended prison sentence. Not much seems to have happened since but the underlying practice around both this case and Fedotov's were hardly a well-kept secret beforehand. In Fedotov's case, CSKA at least technically, is still affiliated with the Russian Defense Ministry. That further complicated the picture.
Ultimately, Fedotov never went to the front lines in Ukraine. He spent the required year on the base. He missed the entire 2022-23 KHL season, but then re-signed with CSKA. He'll turn 27 on Nov. 28 and he'll be 29 by the time free agency comes up again. While there are a few goalies, such as Roman Cechmanek, who came over to North America in their late 20s or early 30s, the NHL is much more of a younger man's game nowadays (even with goalies). Thus, Fedotov's return to the KHL may spell the end of his stated dream to play in the NHL.
The question now: Fedotov clearly had a valid NHL contract. The deal never would been tolled in the first place had he not been taken into custody, registered for selective service (and hospitalized for "gastritis", and being escorted to the military base. There was absolutely NO way for him to play in North America in 2022-23.
For the KHL to now say Fedotov was a "free agent" whose NHL deal was expired and new KHL contract legitimate is as downright laughable as it is predictable. As a sheer display of gall, though, this is like the classic example of chutzpa being someone who kills his parents then tells the court to be lenient because he's an orphan. Fedotov is jus a pawn in all of this, and I don't blame him. It was the Russian authorities who killed his NHL dream and now have the audacity to act like this was just some routine contract matter of a free agent transfer.
What it was really was: the KHL violated whatever is left of the MOU. I don't think the NHL will force the matter any further as relates to Ivan Fedotov -- can't take to the IIHF, can't make the Russian contingent go to arbitration in North American, and Fedotov has a signed contract with CSKA -- but it's a dangerous game to play. I just don't think either the NHL or KHL actually want a full-fledged return to how things were before the MOU.
As such, CSKA and the KHL will get their way on this one. Fedotov can resume his career, albeit not in the NHL, and the Flyers have plenty of goalie depth in the system without Fedotov. Things could be much worse.
********
The Michkov Factor
I know this question will come out: How does the Fedotov situation (or Kolosov's ELC signing) affect the Flyers relative to Matvei Michkov? The answer is that, right now, there's no effect. The Flyers are willing to wait for the player and there's no reason right now to worry that it'll be for longer than the three remaining seasons on his SKA contract in the KHL.
However, I do think there are some parameters here that many Flyers fans do not grasp. There are some who seem to believe that it'd an easy matter to break his contract with SKA. That is not the case.
Get to know these names: Roman Rotenberg, Gennady Timchenko and the Gazprom company. They are the billionaire power brokers behind SKA St. Petersburg.
Roman Rotenberg, of the Rotenberg oligarch family that is very closely tied to Putin himself, is the self-appointed coach and general manager of SKA. (He's a very good athlete in his own right, by the way, but never previously played or coached hockey professionally). Young, handsome, extremely ambitious and having a reputation of arrogance, he's used to getting his way and drives a very hard bargain. He's not someone that many would relish having as an enemy. Rotenberg has already stated since the NHL Draft that SKA fully intends to hold Michkov to the full five-year contract he signed as a 16-year-old prodigy; which has three years to run.
The Rotenberg family is on the international business sanctions list but haven't seemed to suffer in any truly meaningful way. Neither has Timchenko, an oil-and-gas oligarch, the head of the Volga Group investment firm and close friend of Putin's for more than 30 years. Timchenko is the president of SKA and serves on the board of directors for the KHL as a whole. Gazprom, the state-associated energy corporation, is SKA's primary sponsor.
If you think the Flyers are going to be able to strong-arm SKA into relinquishing Michkov at Philly's dictates, think again. It's not impossible to negotiate for an early contract release, but the 2026 ETA is probably the most straightforward to accomplish.
I will, however, harken back to something I said above in the Fedotov section: the KHL is playing a dangerous game in violating the spirt of the former MOU with the NHL even if they couch it as a routine free agency contracting disagreement. Fedotov would have legitimately been a free agent on July 1, 2023, had he not been forcibly prevented from coming overseas for the 2023-24 season.
If the Flyers were to force the issue (which, again, I don't think they will), they'd have a ready-made defense for trying to get Michkov's contract with SKA broken on a similar basis to the KHL basically refusing to honor the tolling of Fedotov's contract. In the National Hockey League and in north American professional team sports as a whole, a player has to meet a minimum age requirement to turn professional.
On Dec. 12, 2020, Michkov signed a five-year contract (kicking in for 2021-22 and running through 2025-26) with SKA. The contact kicked in a few months before Michkov turned 16. The NHL could argue that such professional team sports contracts, especially long-term deals of that nature, are not permitted over here nor is the NHL obligated to recognize such a contract from overseas. At such a tender age, a player is too young to understand all the pros and cons of signing such a deal. He mostly just wants to play.
I don't think thos will go the route of a knock-down, drag-out fight to get Michkov overseas. It doesn't seem likely to be necessary when a three-year wait or a negotiated earlier release are much less messy.
The point I'm making here is that there is a slippery slope once the intention of the MOU is violated. A full-fledged leap to contract-jumping isn't imminent but there was no need for the KHL to even risk opening that door a crack. Cooperation, even if grudging, is preferable.
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