“Brick By Brick” is the marketing slogan the Philadelphia Flyers are using this season as they continue to embark on their rebuilding journey. The “bricks” in place feature a budding young forward core of Matvei Michkov, Trevor Zegras, Jett Luchanko, Tyson Foerster, and Owen Tippett. On defense, it’s Cam York and Jamie Drysdale providing youth and hopeful long-term stability on the blueline.
In goal… well, that’s a bit of a question mark.
Goaltending has long been the crutch of the Flyers over the last 30 years or so. There have been stopgaps with modest success such as Roman Čechmánek and Steve Mason. Michael Leighton and Brian Boucher even helped put together a miracle run to the 2010 Stanley Cup Final. But there hasn’t been a true long-term franchise netminder in Philadelphia in ages.
Sam Ersson is trying to become exactly that.
2024-25 was tough sledding for Ersson. A .883 SV%, 3.14 GAA, and just 19 quality starts out of 45 total spelled out a disastrous season for the young Swede.
“Overall, I definitely think there’s a lot of good things from my season that I can take with me,” said Ersson at the team’s Break Up Day in April. “I think, again, just things I need to do better is find a way to be a little bit more consistent, especially when it’s on the later part of the season. I think I’m still trying to find ways how to manage energy levels and stuff like that to find a way to perform at a consistent high level throughout the year.”
Ersson did have a couple stretches in which he looked solid. A 6-game run from October 26 to November 1- saw him go 4-0-1 with a .915 SV% and 2.27 GAA. From December 12 to January 7, he went 9-3-0 with a .905 SV%, 2.45 GAA, and 1 shutout.
Let’s also not forget what he did internationally as well. He made one appearance at the 4 Nations Face-Off and dazzled against Team USA, stopping 32 of 33 shots in a 2-1 win for Team Sweden. If you look at his international performances as a whole between the Euro Hockey Tour, 4 Nations Face-Off, and IIHF World Championship, Ersson went 7-0-0 with a .949 SV%, 1.23 GAA, and 2 shutouts for Sweden in 2025.
But his close to the NHL regular season was, frankly, horrendous. From February 27 to April 15, Ersson was 4-7-2 with a .852 SV% and 4.04 GAA. It was the second consecutive year that Ersson fell apart as the season wound down. In 2023-24, Ersson was tasked with helping the Flyers in their playoff push after the departure of Carter Hart. Minor leaguers Cal Petersen and Felix Sandström provided zero help behind Ersson, leaving him to play the majority of the games down the stretch almost by default. Post-trade deadline, Ersson went just 5-7-2 with a .861 SV%, 3.65 GAA, and 1 shutout as the Flyers missed the playoffs by just 4 points in the end.
2023-24 came down to fatigue, but 2024-25 was simply marred by inconsistency despite some lingering injury troubles. Ersson did miss periods of time during the season with lower-body injuries, but he never used them as an excuse despite his subpar play.
“I think anytime you have to deal with injuries it is frustrating,” said Ersson. “I mean, it’s something that, you just want to feel good and want to be able to play one-hundred percent, but like I said a little bit, things are going to happen. Like you’re playing a sport for a living and then you’re going to get hurt. It’s a tough schedule. And I think for me, you find ways to kind of both physically but also mentally kind of deal with that and still manage to perform at the level you want.”
A clean bill of health and a consistent partner are paramount in Ersson succeeding this season – even with a depleted defense in front of the net – but he knows he has to be better no matter the situation. Free agent acquisition Dan Vladař had a strong preseason and did well enough where he will be starting the Flyers’ season opener on Thursday night against the Florida Panthers. While Ersson didn’t necessarily have a terrible preseason, he didn’t shine like Vladař did, but maybe they can feed off of each other and those two can form a formidable duo.
Aleksei Kolosov and Carson Bjarnason will also be marinating in the AHL and even though Kolosov’s NHL tenure last season was awful, he’s still a prospect the Flyers are investing their resources into and maybe that NHL experience he gained will help him positively grow this year. Kolosov and Ivan Fedotov did their best to push Ersson last season, but their best was unfortunately the league’s worst. However, Ersson still understood he was competing for playing time alongside two hungry netminders.
“I think for me going into the year, obviously one of my goals is, kind of like to solidify myself and get that starter position,” said Ersson in April. “So more than that, the pressure of that obviously is more there, but for me I think… I just want to find ways to perform a little bit more consistent. That was also a goal going into the year and I think at times I did that.”
We have seen flashes of Ersson’s skill scattered around his short yet turbulent NHL career. 6 wins and his first NHL shutout over a few brief recalls in 2022-23 gave us a glimpse into what he could be. He was a serviceable backup to Hart and was steadily improving before being thrust into an unenviable starting role in 2023-24. Last season was largely unsuccessful for him but he did have a few solid stretches of play. He was the winning goalie of record in almost 67 percent of Philadelphia’s 33 wins.
Vladař is signed through 2027. Kolosov, an RFA, will be looking for a new contract this offseason. Bjarnason will try to stake his claim as a piece of the Flyers’ puzzle in his rookie professional campaign. Egor Zavragin is currently tearing up the KHL and giving both Flyers fans and the organization something to look forward to in the coming years. Ersson will hit restricted free agency – with arbitration rights – after the most pivotal season of his young NHL career.
Sam Ersson is a talented, young goaltender, and the Flyers need another “brick” to build their team, but they need this specific brick to become an entire brick wall in 2025-26 if he wants to be part of the long-term solution in Philadelphia.
