MUSKEGON – Muskegon Lumberjacks fans know the team added a talented Russian goalie a few weeks ago, and Platon Zadorozhny has made a big difference thus far.

In four games, he has a 2-2 record with a solid 3.42 goals against average. His pure athleticism has been obvious since his rough first game, when he gave up seven goals while playing on very little sleep after his long journey from Russia.

What fans don’t know is that Zadorozhny was not the only Russian goalie the team had been pursuing.

Another was Alexander Kuleshov, but he had visa problems that made his ability to play in the U.S. questionable this season. Meanwhile, Zadorozhny was able to convince his Russian team to release him a few weeks ago, and he hopped on a plane for the U.S. and immediately improved the Jacks’ goaltending fortunes.

But now it appears that Kuleshov will be able to join the Lumberjacks, as well, and could be in uniform by this weekend, when they play Friday and Saturday night in Dubuque in the last two games of a two-weekend road swing.

So the Jacks will have two very talented Russian goalies on their roster, along with promising rookie Cameron Korpi. That will give Coach Mike Hamilton three excellent goaltending options as the season moves forward.

That’s good news for team that had no good answers in the goaltending department a few short weeks ago. The Lumberjacks started the season assuming that Jan Skorpik, who showed a lot of potential last season, would be the No. 1 goalie, but he got off to a very rough start, and the team released him when Zadorozhny became available.

“We were searching and reaching out to our contacts looking for a guy, and Kuleshov actually developed on our radar first, but he was having trouble getting a visa,” Hamilton said. “So we went out and got Platon, who has been very good, and then Kuleshov ended up coming through, as well.”

If anyone is imagining an ugly rivalry forming between two elite Russian goalies, there’s no reason to fear, according to Hamilton.

“It’s kind of funny, because Russia is a pretty large country, but they know each other,” the coach said. “They share the same goalie coach, and they speak very highly of each other. They are both high-end goalies, and they were both highly-ranked over there.”

Kuleshov comes with some pretty stunning statistics from his most recent two seasons in Russian hockey, playing for a team called Talpa Ufa.

In 2019-20 he had a 23-1-1 record, along with an insanely low 1.86 goals against average and six shutouts in 29 appearances.

Last season he had a 14-8-4 record with a very stingy 2.25 GAA in 26 games.

Hamilton said that Zadorozhny, Kuleshov and Korpi will all remain on the roster, pushing each other to improve and battling for playing time.

“We worked real hard to turn a weakness into a strength, and we hope that’s going to be the case now,” Hamilton said. “We’re going to have three people sharing the net for a bit until it’s the right time for one guy to take it over.”