Philadelphia Flyers sign goaltender after top prospect abandoned team

The Philadelphia Flyers were put in a very tough spot just days before they were set to open training camp for the 2024-2025 season. A Report came out that their top goaltending prospect Alexei Kolosov would likely not be reporting to the team as he wanted to stay back in his home country. This obviously put a tremendous amount of strain on the flyers organization as a whole, but it looks like they have their back up plan.

According to PuckPedia, the flyers have signed 25-year-old goaltender Eetu Makiniemi, presumably to take Kolosov's place. Makiniemi was on a PTO with the Flyers before inking his new deal.

Makiniemi Was in the minors, all of last season splitting time between the American hockey league and the ECHL where he played just 18 and 3 games respectively.

This is obviously a far cry from the top prospect in Alexei Kolosov, but a solution nonetheless. At least Makiniemi wants to be a part of the organization and should be excited to get an opportunity that has come out of signing a PTO.

I feel for both the Philadelphia Flyers organization and Alexei Kolosov here. Obviously, if you're the Philadelphia Flyers, you want to have your top prospect not only come to North America to be a part of the organization, but you would also want him to honour the contract that he signed. On the other hand, though I can empathize with the fact that this top prospect has a lot of pressure on him to begin with, and moving across the world must be very hard.

Whatever way you look at it the situation was not ideal and both are just making the best of the situation that they were put in.