A successful season debut indeed.
Despite starting the KHL season on the bench, Philadelphia Flyers goalie prospect Egor Zavragin has passed his first test of the new season with flying colors.
Zavragin, 21, made his first start for his new KHL team, Metallurg Magnitogorsk, on Tuesday morning, stopping 17 of 18 shots (.944) in a 2-1 overtime win over Amur Khabarovsk.
Metallurg starts its season 2-0-0, with Zavragin's running mate, Alexander Smolin, defeating Amur himself on Sunday, aiding the team to a 4-2 victory.
Smolin, 22, turned in a similar performance to Zavragin in the season-opener for Metallurg, stopping 18 of 20 shots (.900).
Metallurg, one of the best teams in the KHL, isn't going to allow too many shots and chances against when facing weaker teams like Amur, but Zavragin technically did outplay Smolin this week.
Zavragin was forced to exit Tuesday's game briefly, with Smolin coming in for 2:15 and facing no shots, but soon returned to finish Amur off and earn the win.
From these two games, we can now deduct a few things about the Flyers' top goalie prospect and his situation going forward.
Zavragin set to share the crease
Last season, Metallurg played their hand evenly, rotating Smolin with Colorado Avalanche prospect Ilya Nabokov. Smolin outperformed Nabokov in the timeshare and earned the bulk of the work in the Gagarin Cup playoffs, going 7-2-0 in his 10 postseason appearances with a 1.67 GAA, one shutout, and a .933 save percentage.
Smolin opened the season as Metallurg's starter, which makes him the de facto 1A goalie, but the door is open for Zavragin to perform when given the opportunity and earn himself more playing time going forward.
The good news is that we've already seen Zavragin handle a larger workload, too, when he played 43 KHL games between HC Sochi and SKA St. Petersburg in 2024-25.
It's a welcomed development for the Flyers, for sure, that Zavragin didn't come up short when called upon to hold up his end of the bargain in the shared crease. If he had, that would have meant a larger role for Smolin to start the season.
Instead, Zavragin rose to the occasion on his first start, and now he has one foot on the ladder as he begins to climb in what should be his second full season developing as a KHL regular.
