In this week’s episode of Keeping Up with the Fedotovs, CSKA Moscow have lodged a formal appeal on the IIHF’s ruling in favor of the Philadelphia Flyers. Previously, the IIHF found, to nobody’s surprise, that Ivan Fedotov did in fact have a valid NHL contract with Philadelphia. At the end of the day, this is still Russia, and they will do whatever they want to do because they cannot be any more alienated from the rest of the world than they already are.
In an official statement provided on Aug. 14, the IIHF declared:
"“Based on the evidence provided to the IIHF by the involved parties, the IIHF has determined that Ivan Fedotov has a valid NHL Contract with the Philadelphia Flyers Hockey Club for the 2023/2024 season. Accordingly, the IIHF has determined that Ivan Fedotov was in breach of a Professional Player Contract per Article II.4.1 of the IIHF International Transfer Regulations when he signed a contract with CSKA hockey club for the 2023/2024 season.”"
As a result, Fedotov was supposed to be banned from playing until Jan. 1, 2024, but that does not seem likely. The 6-foot-7 netminder is still participating in CSKA training camp, and the team is preparing for their preseason game against Dinamo Minsk – the club that Flyers prospect Alexei Kolosov plays for.
Naturally, there’s a lot of hype around the Russian goaltender, and deservedly so. The NHL goalie scene is dominated by a group headlined by Igor Shesterkin, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Ilya Sorokin. At this point though, and after all of the legal trouble to this point, it is genuinely unreasonable to expect Ivan Fedotov to play a single minute of ice time for the Flyers.
With their contingent of Kolosov, Matvei Michkov, and Yegor Zavragin, the organization would be better off just letting it go. Taking a Russian club to the IIHF was always going to be a futile practice, and there has still been zero progress in either direction, over a month into the process.
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