Dan Vladař’s breakout season has earned him a contract extension with the Flyers. Now can he do it again?
Vladař, 28, was excellent in his debut season with the Flyers, posting a .906 save percentage and 2.42 goals-against average. Next year he'll have to prove he's the guy again.
Six days have passed since the Carolina Hurricanes’ Jackson Blake scored in overtime to end the Flyers’ season, since his wrist shot from the slot glanced off Dan Vladař’s glove and trickled into the net. It would be wrong to say that Vladař saw that goal in his sleep, because by his account, he hasn’t slept much since.
“I watched that goal a lot that night,” he said. “I probably watched it 150 times, and I was still getting more and more mad, and it’s still in me. It’s going to be another fire driving me forward.”
Here was your irony of ironies in what has been regarded as a season that, on the whole, was a successful one for the Flyers: Their goaltender allowed a goal on a stoppable shot, and that goal eliminated them from the second round of the playoffs, and few people, if any, are complaining about the team’s performance or the goaltender’s. Not only are the complaints about Vladař hard to find, but somehow, out of the Flyers’ quasi-renaissance, the position that has bedeviled them most in the last half-century might be the one compelling the least change and the least worry. They need a No. 1 center. They need a No. 1 defenseman. They don’t need a No. 1 goalie … for now, anyway.
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“We have to give credit there to our goalies,” general manager Danny Brière said Thursday at his end-of-season media availability. “They were excellent. We’d like to improve everywhere else.”
Brière included Sam Ersson, Vladař’s backup, in that praise, but let’s be honest here: Ersson had a chance, over the two previous years, to grab the Flyers’ No. 1 goaltender job, and he couldn’t. If he were good enough to be a full-time starter, the Flyers wouldn’t have signed Vladař last summer in the first place, and they wouldn’t be weighing whether to bring Ersson back next season.
No, Vladař was the solid, stabilizing force, and here’s some more honesty: The Flyers didn’t think he would be this good. Five NHL seasons with the Boston Bruins and Calgary Flames, and Vladař had never appeared in more than 30 games in any of them. Brière, president Keith Jones, coach Rick Tocchet: They anticipated Vladař sharing time. They had no clue that he would wrest the job from Ersson, post a .906 save percentage in 52 regular-season games, and be even better in the playoffs: a .922 save percentage and two shutouts in 10 games, including his 42-save opus in Game 6 of the first round against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
“He blew [away] the expectations we had on him,” Brière said. “Going into the season, I know you guys all wrote about and spoke about how he had never played more than 30 games in a season in the NHL. Obviously, that was a worry for us. We thought it was going to be a good tandem with Sam, but he really took over and earned more starts. …
“That gives you confidence because of the way he played in the playoffs, too. He didn’t slow down. He was just as good or even better in the playoffs. That was really exciting to see. It makes us believe he could be the answer here for hopefully a few more years.”
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That question — Vladař’s future with the Flyers — will be one of their most important, and likely most easily answered, of their offseason. He is 28, with a year left on his contract, coming off his first season as a full-time starter. He left no doubt Tuesday, during the team’s cleanout day, that he wants a contract extension: “If you can ask the same question to Danny Brière,” he said. “I’m going to be watching.”
He earned one, to be sure, another two or three years perhaps. Goaltenders can thrive well into their 30s, but because the Flyers have been so unsettled in net for so long, a single excellent season from one goalie can seem more significant than it actually was.
That’s all it was, one season, and Brière himself acknowledged that the pressure on the Flyers not just to make the playoffs next season but advance beyond the second round will be heavy. “I could tell you no,” he said, “but I know all the players are going to come back and that’s definitely going to be their goal. I don’t want to lower expectations either.” The memory of that overtime goal glancing off his glove will stay with and push Dan Vladař, but in that way, the demands made of him, even after a season in which he was the Flyers’ best player, won’t be any different from those of his teammates. You did it once. Do it again.
