Flyers rookie camp begins later this week, and then the full-blown training camp will start the week after.
The new NHL season is rapidly approaching, though quite somberly now.
Here are a few thoughts on the Flyers before they get going again over in Voorhees, and then one more on the story that has devastated the hockey world...
No. 1 Ersson
Sam Ersson and Ivan Fedotov are the Flyers' plan at goaltender going into this year, each with the benefit of having the full summer to prepare for a heavier workload.
For Fedotov, the time was about getting better acclimated to a new team, league, city, and country after quickly arriving over from Russia late last season but getting thrown straight into the fire as the Flyers clung on to their fading playoff hopes.
For Ersson, the time was to build up toward taking on No. 1 minutes.
Ersson played 51 games last season (starting 49 of them) and logged more than 2800 minutes. It was way more than he was ever supposed to play.
Originally, the 24-year old was only expected to start around 18-22 games as Carter Hart's backup, head coach John Tortorella explained back in April, but then he kept playing well, the share of the starts built toward a 50-50 split, and then Hart was gone entirely to face a sexual assault charge tying back to the 2018 Hockey Canada scandal.
Ersson had to be the guy from then on, and he did admirably in answering the call. He just ran out of gas down the stretch.
"I made the decision that we're going with Ers because I think he deserved it," Tortorella said down the stretch of last season. "And I've played the hell out of him, and he's tired."
So now the goal is to try and make sure that he won't if the Flyers are back in the race again.
Rookies at the rink
The Flyers' rookies and prospects will be back at the team's training center this week following the development camp from earlier in the summer, but this time with Matvei Michkov in the fold.
They'll have a couple of on-ice sessions in Voorhees before heading up to the Phantoms' arena in Allentown to play the Rangers' prospects in a pair of exhibitions on Friday and Saturday.
It'll be the first look at Michkov in game action for a lot of fans, which is obviously the big draw, but it'll also be a check-in on other notable prospects like London Knights Oliver Bonk and Denver Barkey, big defenseman Hunter McDonald, and this past summer's first-round pick Jett Luchanko before they each disperse for their respective minor-league/junior clubs.
They might not push for an NHL spot just yet – well, with the exception of Michkov – but you can check where they each seem to be on the development timeline HERE.
Kolosov (probably) isn't coming though
From the Daily Faceoff's Anthony Di Marco on Monday:
Kolosov, a 22-year old goalie prospect out of Belarus who the Flyers drafted in the third round three years ago, came over to North America at the same time as Fedotov late last season to get started with the Phantoms in the AHL.
He played in a couple of games to close out the year, with his entry-level contract active, and the Flyers' plan for this coming season was to have him as the Phantom's main goalie up in Allentown. But Kolosov went home for the summer amid rumors that he was homesick and that there was a chance he just might not return to North America at all.
Those rumors never went anywhere and the time to dispel them has all but run out with rookie camp this week and then training camp the next.
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As of Tuesday afternoon, Kolosov is still on the roster on the Flyers' website and there's nothing pointing to his entry-level contract being voided or terminated.
The 2024-25 season would mark year 2 of that three-year contract, per PuckPedia, so if a toll is in play to freeze it for a year, that's probably the best possible compromise for the time being, though one that doesn't clear up the situation much for the long-term.
Immediately, Kolosov's expected absence mucks up the depth in net. The Flyers are going in with Ersson and Fedotov as their 1 and 2, but say one of them struggles or gets hurt, then Kolosov very well could've been the first in line for NHL reps both as a quick fix and a show of a possible future.
Without him, the Flyers would be reaching back to Cal Petersen, which last season proved they can't reliably do, or camp invite Eetu Mäkiniemi, who's relatively unproven after a two-year stint in San Jose's system and needs to stick with the team first.
Then there's the matter of the contract still being valid. So long as it is, Kolosov has to come play for the organization at some point...right?...
Sleeper pick
Everyone has that one prospect they're a bigger believer in than most, so before the Flyers' camp slate gets fully underway, I'll highlight mine: Samu Tuomaala.
When I saw him skate in drills at training camp last summer, he was moving fast and firing off some pretty hard shots (which he later did at the AHL All-Star Game, too). There is a very promising toolkit there for a winger, but then things picked up into scrimmages and he just got lost in the shuffle.
Going to play for Lehigh Valley afterward for the regular season, it looked like he really started putting the puzzle together with a 43-point campaign (15 goals, 28 assists) across 69 games, but injury and a slump did cool him off at the end.
So I can't say the 21-year old is a finished product yet, but I do wonder how much further along he'll look in camp compared to last year, and if a depth forward role might be in the cards not too far off down the line if he puts together a good showing this month.
On Johnny and Matthew
Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau's funeral service was held Monday in Media at St. Mary Magdalen Church.
Hundreds attended, from their family and friends, to NHL colleagues and teammates, Boston College alumni, and the countless lives the brothers touched throughout the South Jersey and Philadelphia hockey communities.
The Columbus Blue Jackets, who Johnny signed a long-term free-agency deal with in 2022, also hosted a live stream of the service for fans wanting to pay their respects from afar.
And it was all heartbreaking, everything that's come in the days since it was confirmed that the brothers were struck and killed by an alleged drunk driver while bicycling along the road in Oldmans Township has been – the vigils at Gloucester Catholic (their high school alma mater) and out front of the Calgary Flames' and Blue Jackets' arenas (the teams that Johnny played as an NHL star on), the numerous tributes and moments of silence across all sports (including the Phillies, Eagles, and even WWE), and the growing memorial of flowers and hockey sticks outside of Holydell Ice Arena in Sewell where they grew up playing, everything...
It all hurts, and as Montreal Canadiens star Cole Caufield put it to the media gathered outside of the church on Monday, "It doesn't feel real yet."
It just won't. Not for a long, long time.
I walked into IceWorks in Aston last week for a pickup skate in the quiet of noon on a Friday. The TV up on the wall across the hall that usually flashes the upcoming events and announcements instead displayed a tribute to Johnny and Matthew, with photos of them as kids in their Little Flyers uniforms from years ago.
They came through here.
Matthew was the guy who made it all the way into the pros and then came back to give back through coaching. He was from around here.
And Johnny was the fresh-faced, full-blown NHL star flying up and down the ice with the nickname "Johnny Hockey." But he was from around here.
And that never seemed to get lost in translation.
There's a part of me in denial of all this, clinging to some sort of faint hope that none of this is actually real and we'll see No. 13 out there on the ice in October as fans everywhere have for years now.
But we won't. Everyone's season, regardless of team, is going to begin in silence, and tears.
Yet the most devastating of all – for their parents, their sister, their wives, their young children and the ones on the way – two sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers...they're never coming home again.
It's not going to feel real. Not for a long time.
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