Flyers goaltender Aleksei Kolosov will start Wednesday vs. Rangers; Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecny to play at 2025 Worlds

When asked in early March about goaltender Aleksei Kolosov’s development during his first full season in North America, Flyers general Danny Brière told The Inquirer: “It’s not ideal, but I’ll leave it at that.”

While Brière didn’t delve into specifics, he said the quiet part out loud: The Flyers have had their hands tied by the unhappy goaltender and his camp ever since he failed to report for the first day of training camp.

Wednesday night will serve as the latest chapter in the season-long saga between Kolosov and the Flyers, as the Belarusian will start against the New York Rangers (7:30, TNT). Kolosov, who became the Flyers’ fourth and final post-deadline call-up on March 25, has not played in an NHL game since Jan. 2 or any game since he appeared for Lehigh Valley on March 22.

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Whether Kolosov, who has largely refused to play along with the organization’s development plan for him in the minors, deserves Wednesday’s start on merit can be disputed. Either way, the start is another chance — and maybe a final one — for him to showcase his ability at the NHL level and convince the organization that he should be part of its future. It might already be too late.

Kolosov was widely regarded as one of the organization’s top-10 prospects entering the season, but his days with the Flyers could be numbered. After a short stint with Lehigh Valley last summer, the netminder got off to the wrong foot this season by threatening to skip training camp, reportedly in the hopes of returning to Kontinental Hockey League club Dinamo Minsk on loan for another season.

The Flyers held their ground with the goalie, with Brière telling the Nasty Knuckles podcast in August that “If [Kolosov] wants to play hockey, he has to come over here. He’s under contract with the Flyers. He’s not allowed to play anywhere else. We want him here.”

Kolosov was a no-show on Day 1 of training camp on Sept. 19 but eventually reported on Sept. 27.

“I think on his end, it’s more about he wants to be guaranteed a spot in the NHL,” Brière said about Kolosov not reporting initially. “If not, he prefers to stay over there, and that’s not the way we see it. … We want him here. We want him to start integrating himself with the game the way it’s played here in North America, the smaller ice, and learning the language and all of that. And I guess he doesn’t see it that way at the moment.”

» READ MORE: Brad Shaw and the Flyers are focused on doing ‘the right things’ as they play out the string

After starting the season with the Phantoms in the American Hockey League, Kolosov was recalled for the first time on Oct. 26 and made his NHL debut the next day against Montreal. He made 15 appearances (11 starts) before returning to the AHL on Jan. 22. He spent all of February with the Flyers but did not appear in any games before heading back to Allentown on March 7. He was recalled on March 25 and has not played since.

Overall, Kolosov is 4-8-1 with a 3.45 goals against average and .870 save percentage in 15 games with the Flyers. He ranks 65th in save percentage among the 65 goalies to play at least 15 games this season. In 12 games with the Phantoms, he hasn’t fared much better with a 3.11 GAA and .884 SV%. Kolosov gave up four goals on 26 shots in a 5-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in his last NHL start on Jan. 2.

With the Flyers’ two other goalies, Sam Ersson and Ivan Fedotov, both struggling, Kolosov will look to make a strong first impression with interim boss Brad Shaw. If he does, he could earn a few more starts as the Flyers play out their remaining five games.

A couple of good starts could go a long way in terms of mending some fences and maybe salvaging his future in Philadelphia.

Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecny have been largely inseparable since teaming up with the Flyers almost a decade ago.

The pair are best friends and have embraced the “Travii” nickname bestowed upon them in Philadelphia. Teammates with Canada at the recent 4 Nations Face-Off, the “Travii” will go international this summer, as both players have committed to don the maple leaf at the 2025 World Championships in Sweden and Denmark. The tournament will run from May 9 through May 25.

While 82 games and one hotly-contested international hockey tournament might seem like too much hockey for most, Sanheim and Konecny aren’t quite ready to put the skates in the garage for the summer.

» READ MORE: Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim once ‘hated each other.’ Now the inseparable ‘Travii’ have reached the highest level of the sport.

“It’s a big reason we both wanted to go,” Konecny told reporters in New York on Wednesday. “Doing it once [at 4 Nations] was pretty cool. … It just never really lined up with my life and his. This year it’s going to work.”

As bubble players for next year’s Canadian Olympic squad, neither player was really in the position to turn down the invitation either, as saying ‘No’ likely wouldn’t be well received by Hockey Canada. Now, both will look to boost their standing within the national ranks in hopes of being on the plane to Italy next March.

Both Sanheim and Konecny have played at the Worlds before. In 2022, Sanheim won silver in Finland, while Konency picked up a silver of his own in 2017 when the event was cohosted by Germany and France. Both will be hoping to replicate the gold they won at 4 Nations this time around.

The Flyers loaned center Rodrigo Ābols to Lehigh Valley for the AHL playoffs. Ābols, 29, tallied two goals and five points in 22 games for the Flyers. … Flyers goalie prospect Carson Bjarnason is a little nicked up after Brandon’s Western Hockey League playoff series and is heading to Philly to be seen by the team’s doctors, a source told The Inquirer. The initial expectation was that Bjarnason would join Lehigh Valley.

Jackie Spiegel contributed to this article.