The Calgary Flames sure love their Russian netminders.
As mentioned in the Kirill Zarubin article from a few days ago, the Flames have picked four goaltenders in the past five National Hockey League drafts, with all of them being from Russia.
Interestingly, Arsenii Sergeev, who we’ll look at today, is the only netminder of the four who played in North America before his draft. The Yaroslavl, Russia native played at three different levels in his draft year, the NCDC, the North American Hockey League (United States’ tier II junior league), and the United States Hockey League (US’ tier I junior league).
Most of the 2019-20 season was spent with the NAHL’s New Jersey Jr. Titans where he had an .892 save percentage and 3.56 goals against average in 15 games played. He played two games in the USHL with the Sioux Falls Stampede, as well as four games with the NCDC New Jersey Rockets.
Entering his draft year, the 2020-21 season, Sergeev played with the Shreveport Mudbugs of the NAHL. The netminder’s play improved that season, posting a .936 save percentage and 2.17 goals against average in 20 games. He played just one postseason game as the Mudbugs won the 2021 Robertson Cup. In the seventh round of the 2021 draft, the Flames picked him 205th overall.
Sergeev exclusively played with the Tri-City Storm of the USHL in 2021-22, authoring a .918 save percentage and 2.08 goals against average in 41 games. In five postseason games with the Storm, he had an .892 save percentage and 2.17 goals against average.
Sergeev went the collegiate route, playing his freshman and sophomore seasons with the University of Connecticut. In his first season, he had a .912 save percentage and 2.61 goals against average in 20 games, followed by a .913 save percentage and 2.50 goals against average in 16 games in 2023-24.
Heading into the 2024-25 season, two things happened. First off, he decided to transfer to Penn State, a school in a weaker division where he’ll get more playing time. The other thing is that the netminder ranked as an honourable mention on our prospect countdown. In that article, Mike Gould noted that if Sergeev can stay around the .910 range with a less-than-ideal defence core in front of him, the netminder may re-rank on our list.
Well, with Penn State, Sergeev has an impressive .920 save percentage and 2.50 goals against average in 25 games. He’s started all but seven games but has bolstered his stock drastically. Penn State currently sits fifth in the Big 10 conference with 31 in-conference points but has an opportunity to pass Michigan who have 32 points. Just two games are remaining this season, with the best-of-three quarterfinals starting on Mar. 7.
It’ll be interesting to see how Sergeev does.
Thanks for reading! You can follow me on Bluesky @ryleydelaney.bsky.social.
Sponsored by bet365:
