Flyers trade goalie Ivan Fedotov to Blue Jackets for draft pick, cap space

Four days before training camp starts, the Flyers removed a big piece from their crowded nets.

They traded 6-foot-7 goalie Ivan Fedotov to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a 2026 sixth-round pick on Sunday. Before the trade, Puckpedia had the Flyers with just $370,238 in salary-cap space; they are not retaining any of Fedotov’s $3.275 million salary.

Trading away his large contract gives the Flyers wiggle room and allows them to avoid placing Ryan Ellis on long-term injured reserve; he has not played since November 2021 and is on the books for two more years. If they had to do that to be cap compliant when the season ends, any performance bonuses handed out this year would automatically lower their cap space next year. The salary cap is projected to be $104 million, and the Flyers brass has already hinted that next summer should be a big one for them.

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The move also all but solidifies the goalie pairings for the organization.

As noted by Flyers general manager Danny Brière on July 1, it is expected that Sam Ersson and Dan Vladař will be at the NHL level. The former Calgary Flames netminder, Vladař, signed a two-year deal on July 1.

Carson Bjarnasson, who turned pro after completing his junior career with Brandon of the Western Hockey League in April, and Aleksei Kolosov are projected to be in net for Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League. Although he showed up to training camp late last year, Kolosov is already in Voorhees and participating in captain’s practices.

Fedotov made his NHL debut on April 1, 2024, coming on in relief against the New York Islanders, after CSKA Moscow of the Kontinental Hockey League terminated his contract a year early. Across two seasons and 29 games with the Flyers, he posted a 6-14-5 record with a 3.29 goals-against average and .874 save percentage.

The 28-year-old Russian netminder’s trip to the NHL ranks was a long and bumpy one.

Selected in the seventh round of the 2015 draft, Fedotov became one of the top goaltenders in the world outside the NHL. Named the KHL’s best goalie in 2021-22, he helped CSKA Moscow win the Gagarin Cup, the KHL’s equivalent of the Stanley Cup, after going 16-6 with a 1.85 goals-against average and .937 save percentage in the playoffs. That same year, he won silver at the Beijing Olympics with the Russian Olympic Committee team.

He signed a one-year, entry-level contract with then-Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher in May 2022 and was expected to compete for the backup role.

However, on July 1 of that year, Fedotov was arrested in St. Petersburg, Russia, for evasion of military service. Following a trial, he was taken to a remote military base in northern Russia, reportedly Severomorsk, for training and to fulfill his one-year obligation. At the time, all able-bodied males in Russia between the ages of 18 and 27 were required to complete one year of military service.

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He missed the entire 2022-23 season before re-signing with CKSA Moscow despite having an NHL contract. The International Ice Hockey Federation ruled that Fedotov’s contract with the Red Army team violated international transfer regulations. Originally, he received a four-month ban from representing Russia at competitions, but was suspended from international competition for an additional three years, beginning in May 2024.

In his last season in the KHL, Fedotov went 21-22-1 with a 2.37 GAA, .914 save percentage, and four shutouts. He posted a 2.57 GAA and .916 save percentage in the playoffs.

“Definitely have a lot of respect for what he’s done,” Flyers general manager Brière told The Inquirer in April when Fedotov was named the Flyers nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy by the Professional Hockey Writers Association Philadelphia chapter. The award is given to a player “who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.”

“Most of us who have played in the NHL, we’ve chased our dream, and you follow the steps, and, yeah, you have to work hard to get there. But the obstacles that he had to go through, it’s probably something that none of us growing up in North America would understand.”

His tenure with the Flyers was not an easy one either. Often, he was the target of ire from former coach John Tortorella. His first full year in the NHL was filled with starts and stops, and large gaps between starts.

The goalie started the season 0-3 with a 5.35 GAA and .821 save percentage behind a team giving up too many odd-man rushes and high-danger shots. He looked awkward and stiff, allowed several questionable goals, and by the end of October, he was the odd man out in a three-headed goalie rotation.

It was just the beginning. He earned his first NHL win, a 2-1 shootout victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 7, but after Ersson and Kolosov went down with injuries, it came 15 days after his previous start. He did start to play more — until Dec. 5, when he allowed two goals on seven shots in 20 minutes to the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, was pulled, and was again demoted to No. 3.

“There’s a few times that it almost seemed like [former Flyers coach John Tortorella] had quit on him, and then a couple of weeks later, he comes in the net and gets us a big win or keeps us in a big game that we shouldn’t have been in,” captain Sean Couturier said of Fedotov in April. “He’s been through some ups and downs, but he’s always tried to work through it and be ready when his name was called.”

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As Brière added, he “never pouted, never complained” when he was not seeing action in games or even equal practice time. After that game against the Panthers, Fedotov did not start again until Jan. 5 when he snagged another point for the Flyers in an overtime loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

He supplanted Kolosov as the No. 2, and while he is certainly unorthodox in his style, he stood on his head in a 29-save performance in a Flyers’ 2-1 shootout win against the top NHL team at the time, the Winnipeg Jets. Interim coach Brad Shaw, who was the associate coach at the time, said it was “about as good a game as I’ve seen a goalie play in a while.”

“It’s not easy, but you have to keep your focus. You have to be consistent, stay with your routine, and work hard,” Fedotov said about the gaps in starts.

“Of course, sometimes you can be mad, inside yourself, because you want to play more, especially when you feel good. … When you have a lot of time, yeah, of course, you think about not very good things a lot sometimes, because it’s normal. You think [about] how you can improve.”

He will now get a chance to compete for the Blue Jackets’ net with Elvis Merzļikins and Jet Greaves.

The Flyers now have six picks in 2026, with two in the second round. They do not have picks in the fourth and fifth rounds.