MOSCOW, April 2 In the National Hockey League (NHL) The record for the number of Russian goalkeepers who played in one regular season was repeated.
On Tuesday night, Ivan Fedotov made his debut with the Philadelphia Flyers, who played two periods and overtime in the match against the New York Islanders (3:4). He became the 12th Russian goalie to play at least one game in the current NHL season. This is a repeat of the record for the number of goalkeepers from Russia, which was set in the last regular season.
This season, Alexander Georgiev, Ivan Prosvetov (both Colorado), Ilya Sorokin, Semyon Varlamov (both Islanders), Sergei Bobrovsky (Florida), Igor Shesterkin (Rangers) also took to the ice. ), Andrey Vasilevsky (Tampa Bay), Pyotr Kochetkov (Carolina), Ilya Samsonov (Toronto), Daniil Tarasov (Columbus) and Yaroslav Askarov (Nashville).
In 2022, Fedotov, a silver medalist at the Beijing Olympics as part of the Russian team, after winning the Gagarin Cup with the army team, signed a contract with Philadelphia, which selected him in the 2015 NHL draft with the 188th number, but was detained at the military registration and enlistment office and sent to military unit for military service. On July 8, 2023, the Continental Hockey League (KHL) registered Fedotov’s new contract with CSKA. The NHL and Philadelphia insist that the goaltender's deal with the Flyers, signed in 2022, must continue through the 2023-24 season.
The International Hockey Federation (IIHF) refused to register CSKA's contract with the goalkeeper. The hockey player was disqualified for four months from September 1, 2023, the capital club was banned from international transfers for a year, but the KHL allowed Fedotov to participate in matches. The IIHF Disciplinary Council later rejected CSKA and Fedotov's appeals against the sanction decision. IIHF President Luc Tardif said at the end of March that the disciplinary case against Fedotov, the KHL and the Russian Hockey Federation would be investigated after the goalkeeper's transfer to Philadelphia.