Way, way back in the 2019 NHL Draft, the Calgary Flames selected promising young goaltender Dustin Wolf in the seventh round. So far, you could say it’s worked out pretty well for the Flames.

Well, the Flames opted for another late-round goalie two years later, selecting Russian-born netminder Arsenii Sergeev in the seventh round out of the North American Hockey League’s Shreveport MudBugs. It was a bit of a gamble at the time, rolling the dice on (a) a Russian, (b) a goalie, (c) a player from the fairly obscure NAHL, a level below the United States Hockey League and (d) a player playing in the hockey hotbed of Shreveport, Louisiana.

But nearly four years after that selection, Sergeev will be taking the spotlight at the NCAA’s Frozen Four – the semi-final and final event of college’s national championship tournament – after back-stopping the Penn State Nittany Lions to a fairly miraculous second-half turnaround.

Even before he was selected by the Flames at 205th overall in 2021, Sergeev had himself a unique hockey journey. A product of Yaroslavl, Russia, he worked his way up through Russian youth hockey before deciding in 2019 – as a 16-year-old – to move to North America to pursue his hockey dreams. He spent the 2019-20 season bouncing around three teams in three different levels, including a brief stint with the USHL’s Sioux Falls Stampede – before landing in the NAHL for his draft year.

Sergeev helped backstop the MudBugs to the NAHL’s championship, the Robertson Cup, and that got him selected by the Flames and earned him an opportunity in the USHL with the Tri-City Storm for the 2021-22 season. Seemingly destined to be backup to Washington Capitals prospect Chase Clark in Tri-City – or at best in a tandem – Sergeev was good enough to take over the net entirely, and he was named the USHL’s top goaltender that season.

The next stop for Sergeev was college, where he spent two seasons with the University of Connecticut Huskies. The good news is that Sergeev was pretty good, but UConn’s coaches didn’t seem to have the patience for some growing pains while trying to remain competitive in a strong Hockey East conference, and so Sergeev ended up playing sporadically. His numbers were solid, but he wasn’t getting much growth or traction due to the stop-and-start nature of his usage. He entered the transfer portal after the 2023-24 season and was picked up by Penn State.

To their credit, Penn State’s coaching staff was pretty blunt about why they targeted Sergeev in the portal: they needed a reliable starter, and they felt he could be the guy. And to their credit, they stuck to their word. Even after Sergeev was injured in mid-November and John Seifarth played really well in relief, Penn State went right back to Sergeev when he was cleared for action in January.

And for that loyalty, Penn State has been rewarded handsomely. In 23 appearances back from injury, starting with his Jan. 3 game at Wrigley Field, Sergeev is 15-4-4 with a 2.63 goals against average, .921 save percentage and three shutouts. He has back-stopped Penn State to wins in 13 of their last 16 games, including a 42-save overtime victory over UConn (his old team) in the regional bracket final back on Mar. 30 to get Penn State into the Frozen Four.

Three times since coming to North America, Sergeev has been told by his coaches that he’s “the guy” in net for his team. At Shreveport, he helped his team win their league’s championship. At Tri-City, he was the top goalie in the league and helped his team to a superb regular season finish. And now, at Penn State, their faith in Sergeev’s abilities has gotten them to the Frozen Four.

There are three other strong teams in St. Louis for this weekend’s games and so it’s unclear how much further the Nittany Lions will go, but Sergeev has been a gigantic piece of the puzzle for Penn State’s second half turnaround and he very much deserves his moment in the spotlight this weekend.