Prospect Info: April 2: Alexei Kolosov has joined AHL Phantoms (Goalie, 2021 draft pick); played April 13

[FromOyVey2Matvei]

They have Johnson using Google Translate now. They're light years ahead of where they were months ago.

STANLEY CUP CHAMPION Erik Johnson***

I’ll forgive you this one time for not using his entire proper name.

 

[Beef Invictus]

I really don't understand how a team in the National Hockey League doesn't pay an entire group of people to on-board and assist with players coming in from non-English speaking countries.

I don't know if anyone else thought it was weird they didn't have a professional translator for Michkov. It was like they pulled their power skating coach from rookie camp in to provide very basic translations. There are people who do this kind of thing for a living.

I feel like the Flyers of the past were way better at this kind of thing. A billion dollar organization has no excuse to be this garbage at maintaining relationships with hockey prospects. It shouldn't be that hard. They can spend as much as they want to get this edge on other teams.

When you have a salary cap, you can't brute spend on the roster. But you can still leverage that financial advantage in other ways. Player care and amenities, facilities, scouting, coaching.

The Flyers mindset seems to be more like "those things spoil players and they need to suffer for culture"

 

[JABEE]

When you have a salary cap, you can't brute spend on the roster. But you can still leverage that financial advantage in other ways. Player care and amenities, facilities, scouting, coaching.

The Flyers mindset seems to be more like "those things spoil players and they need to suffer for culture"

The Cutter Gauthier story is infuriating, because someone should be able to make basic administrative decisions while the Fletcher firing transition was going on. There should have been a realistic and well-oiled plan in place to bring in Gauthier. There should have been an understanding of what he was going to want and what the team was going to need to support their highest drafted prospect since Nolan Patrick.

 

[usahockey22flyers]

The Cutter Gauthier story is infuriating, because someone should be able to make basic administrative decisions while the Fletcher firing transition was going on. There should have been a realistic and well-oiled plan in place to bring in Gauthier. There should have been an understanding of what he was going to want and what the team was going to need to support their highest drafted prospect since Nolan Patrick.

I’m sure the Flyers would take a different path on that one if they could do it again.

No one is higher on Cutter than me, watched a ton of his USAH games over the years. But the way he handled his departure is coward garbage. Be a man and talk to the Flyers.

Obv the boomers suck, but the 16-25 yr old generation doesn’t handle their business like they should and I will never be convinced otherwise.

 

[Beef Invictus]

The Cutter Gauthier story is infuriating, because someone should be able to make basic administrative decisions while the Fletcher firing transition was going on. There should have been a realistic and well-oiled plan in place to bring in Gauthier. There should have been an understanding of what he was going to want and what the team was going to need to support their highest drafted prospect since Nolan Patrick.

Considering everyone who rose to "new" management was privy to everything Fletcher was doing and planning there is no way to blame the transition. It's all the same management. They didn't bring in new guys from outside. That's always seemed like nonsense to me, and essentially blaming Fletcher for getting fired.

The notion that they tried to play hardball with a prospect though...that's a Flyers special

 

[FromOyVey2Matvei]

I’m sure the Flyers would take a different path on that one if they could do it again.

No one is higher on Cutter than me, watched a ton of his USAH games over the years. But the way he handled his departure is coward garbage. Be a man and talk to the Flyers.

Obv the boomers suck, but the 16-25 yr old generation doesn’t handle their business like they should and I will never be convinced otherwise.

You grew up in a different time with different life experiences. If you delve into the unique circumstances of each generation (and you can take that further to each unique person), understand their values hierarchy and beliefs and their priorities in life, and what matters most to them, their decision-making becomes a lot less mysterious. You may still not agree with the decisions they come to, because again, you’ve lead a different life and we all have different priorities, but at least you can understand.

I promise you, “these damn kids” aren’t just going around being entitled and making illogical decisions, although it may seem that way to you on the face.

As far as Cutter goes, I personally believe he handled things professionally, as he still won’t go public and throw the team under the bus. He’s allowed them to spin things however they want to try and save face, as long as they did right by him in trading him out of the organization. Even with all the vitriol and death threats directed towards him and his family after the Flyers smear campaign, he has stayed silent, professional and moved on.

In all my years of following sports, I’ve never heard of a player and an agent ghosting a team without a reason. I don’t believe a team that was being “”ghosted without understanding the reason would just acquiesce to the trade demand and try to trade him at the draft a month later. Worlds ended May 28th. Briere alleges the call where he had a contract ready to go and was expecting to hear Gauthier was ready to turn pro happened shortly after that, and then the draft where the Flyers are confirmed to have tried to trade Cutter for the 5th pick happened June 28th.

The timeline seems to fit a lot better with a team that understands they messed up and the relationship is fractured. Tried to trade him immediately after he made the request. When they couldn’t get what they wanted, they tried to repair the relationship. They understood he was mad with Jones and Briere (presumably for some type of contract situation) so they tried to send two “legends” (using that term loosely) under the employ of the team to deliver a sneaky sales pitch. When that didn’t work, the last ditch desperation to corner him at the WJC and then finally when that failed, the trade.

 

[Rich Nixon]

This should make for another interesting article from @Rich Nixon

I'm letting the dust settle a bit on that to see if there's more information to be gotten. My format is deep dive/well-sourced feature-length pieces, so I'll let the bloggers play with the scraps until there's a big enough mess here to write about.

In the meantime, I'm interested in the role of the Flyers "President" over the last 15 years, with a curiosity about Luukko's departure and how it set off everything after. If anyone has any recollections or links about that instance or anything related to Luukko's relative involvement in the team, let me know via DM.

 

[ellja3]

Can someone, please, give TLDR on Kolosov situation?

 

[usahockey22flyers]

Bill with Jason M on Flyers Daily today
-Flyers had a good relationship with Minsk throughout the year, were able to communicate with him freely and talked to him throughout the year
-Plan was to always ease him into the season, get him over here to just have him over here
-Not uncommon that Kolosov was training with Minsk - also he was wearing Phantoms head to toe gear
-Particularly quiet, seemed homesick, was a little withdrawn
-None of the Flyers, Minsk or Kolosov have talked about ending the contract
-Minsk have 3 goalies on the roster - games start in a month - I think he said regular season
-Legally he can only play for the Flyers, non-interference agreement
-Many European players do not want to play in the AHL, would rather play in their home country

 

[Curufinwe]

Funniest outcome is that they force Kolosov to come over, but then Fedotov sucks so much he gets demoted to the AHL and Kolosov ends up in the NHL pushing Ersson for starts. Stranger things have happened.

 

[mr figgles]

When you have a salary cap, you can't brute spend on the roster. But you can still leverage that financial advantage in other ways. Player care and amenities, facilities, scouting, coaching.

The Flyers mindset seems to be more like "those things spoil players and they need to suffer for culture"

I was going to say this exact same thing. You would think a team with deep pockets like the Flyers would use that to their advantage in every way possible.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Watch Kolosov completely take over the starting job...

 

[TheKingPin]

Funniest outcome is that they force Kolosov to come over, but then Fedotov sucks so much he gets demoted to the AHL and Kolosov ends up in the NHL pushing Ersson for starts. Stranger things have happened.

Think you could just do what I think they should do now. Cut Fedotov - he still gets paid. Give NHL jobs to Ersson and Kolosovv

 

[Fight4yourRight]

Why not just run with 3 goalies and rotate all of them and see what they have with each? Oh wait, I forgot they aren’t rebuilding.

 

[prototypical4thliner]

Why not just run with 3 goalies and rotate all of them and see what they have with each? Oh wait, I forgot they aren’t rebuilding.

I honestly don’t know their cap structure but can they afford this sort of luxury? It seems like the logical thing to do but them gifting Fedotov almost 4 million a year isn’t a judicious use of their money.

It would be good to have them all get 25-30 starts. Ersson obviously looked like he fatigued down the stretch.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

I honestly don’t know their cap structure but can they afford this sort of luxury? It seems like the logical thing to do but them gifting Fedotov almost 4 million a year isn’t a judicious use of their money.

It would be good to have them all get 25-30 starts. Ersson obviously looked like he fatigued down the stretch.

If Johansen goes to LTIR, they have enough room to rotate 3 goalies.

 

[Larry44]

The key thing right now is that the Flyers haven't actually heard from Kolosov or his people that he's not coming. As Bill said, Kolosov is practicing in Phantoms gear. Here's the photo of Kolosov in his gear from a couple weeks ago.

 

[usahockey22flyers]

The key thing right now is that the Flyers haven't actually heard from Kolosov or his people that he's not coming. As Bill said, Kolosov is practicing in Phantoms gear. Here's the photo of Kolosov in his gear from a couple weeks ago.


View attachment 897733

Jason also said those pads are new, because he was using the Minsk pads in the playoffs last year? I could be misunderstanding

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

The key thing right now is that the Flyers haven't actually heard from Kolosov or his people that he's not coming. As Bill said, Kolosov is practicing in Phantoms gear. Here's the photo of Kolosov in his gear from a couple weeks ago.

Reminds me of the time they claimed they hadn't heard from Gauthier's camp for months and yet their own story they told showed that they had communication with Gauthier's camp.

 

[renberg]

Why not just run with 3 goalies and rotate all of them and see what they have with each? Oh wait, I forgot they aren’t rebuilding.

Makes sense. It seemed that a lot of clubs went through three goalies at one time or another last year.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

The Flyers local media sans Charlie keeps down playing Friedman’s & the overseas reports about Kolosov. Charlie is the only one that seemingly acknowledges it could be true & the Flyers could be lying again like they did with Gauthier.

 

[freakydallas13]

I mean, it's possible Kolosov just went back for the summer and will come back to start the season, but we just had this team lie to us about the Gauthier situation so I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Larry44]

I mean, it's possible Kolosov just went back for the summer and will come back to start the season, but we just had this team lie to us about the Gauthier situation so I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

We'll see if he shows up to camp, I guess.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Oh wow, Flyers sources paint the Flyers in a good way. More at 11.

Before we get into specifics of this matter, let me be clear, that professional sports teams always find temporary housing for their players until the player can establish housing on his own. The Flyers are well known throughout the sport of hockey to be among the best of the best when it comes to taking care of players and staff with these kinds of accommodations, to make transitioning to a new area easier, but it should be clearly stated that temporary housing is the norm.

By comparison, the Phillies just traded for Austin Hays and Carlos Estevez. Until they can get settled and find a place to live in the Philly area, they’re living in temporary housing – most likely a hotel.

When Kolosov came over to the Phantoms last March, the Flyers immediately offered to get him set up in the same apartment complex where most of the Phantoms were staying. However, Kolosov didn’t want to have roommates. He wanted his own space. As such, he chose the option of being in a hotel close to the rink.

He wasn’t forced there by the Flyers organization.

The one thing the Flyers acknowledge they didn’t have was a coach or a teammate who could speak the same language as Kolosov. In such a condensed time frame and already past the deadline, the Flyers couldn’t just add someone to the roster who could be an interpreter friend for Kolosov for that month.

So they literally had NO ONE that could speak the language around this man?

What was also communicated to Kolosov was that the organization planned for him to be the No. 1 goalie in the AHL in 2024-25 and that they would attempt to bring in a player or two who speak Russian to add a level of comfort for him as he continued to adapt to a North American lifestyle.

As of this time, the Flyers have not added those players to the Phantoms roster, but sources said it is on their to-do list before the start of training camp.

Have they added any? Genuine question.

And trying to report it any other way, is just not providing the full story.

Did ASF talk to Kolosov? If not then he's not providing the full story and just defending the badge.

 

[JABEE]

Shouldn't the team have interpreters on staff? The Phillies have these accommodations. It should be standard practice for a team to have actual translators around, not just teammates or coaches who they deputize to pull double-duty.