While cuts would have been expected today, the only news from the Flyers so far is that they placed goalie Cal Petersen on waivers.

After the arrival of Ivan Fedotov and Alexei Kolosov during training camp, Petersen was not expected to make the Flyers. The fact that the Flyers also signed Eetu Mäkiniemi last week after inviting him to a professional workout during training camp just shows how far down the pecking order Petersen is.

The goaltender, who was making $5 million this season in the final year of his contract, has been rather miserable in his short time with the Flyers this camp. He played only 28:46 minutes against Montreal and scored four goals, leading to four goals against and a save percentage of .667. The saying “two out of three ain’t bad” is usually true, but if you save two out of three shots in the NHL, you’re not far from making it to the big leagues. The only bright spot is that Petersen’s $3.85 million cap hit by being sent down to the minors will be about a little over $1 million less than the $5 million that’s on the books. As has been well documented, Petersen was acquired from the Los Angeles Kings in June 2023 along with Helge Grans, Sean Walker and a second-round pick in 2024 in exchange for Ivan Provorov and Hayden Hodgson.

Petersen, who turns 30 in October, appeared in five games last season and posted a .864 save percentage, conceding 18 goals and posting a 3.90 goals-against average. Petersen’s poor play, albeit a small sample size, was enough for coach John Tortorella to rely heavily on Sam Ersson during the 2023-24 playoff hunt. Petersen isn’t expected to make any appearances this season (barring a horrific spate of injuries to Flyer goaltenders) and he appears to be Lehigh Valley’s third-string goaltender as Kolosov and Mäkiniemi are both much younger and looking to the future.

Should a team claim Petersen, it would be a huge surprise and a win for the Flyers, who would save themselves from this cap hit for the rest of the season. It’s unlikely he’ll be claimed, but we’ll know for sure on Thursday. There was speculation that the Flyers would buy him out, but with only one season left on the books and the fact that the contract extension makes little sense for a team that doesn’t want to sign free agents, it makes sense that he would be in the April will be struck from the books.