Dan Vladař’s status for Game 4 is unknown. And you thought the Flyers’ goaltending wasn’t an issue this time ...

Certain column topics are tempting tropes. They are stories or narratives that arise repeatedly, or seem to, and dare you to rely on them one more time. You can try to ignore them or write around them, but there they are, teasing you with their familiarity, with so much history that you know by heart. Such subjects aren’t merely low-hanging fruit. They are apples so large and heavy and juicy that they are scraping the ground from bent tree branches. You have an hour. You need 772 words. Go ahead. Bite the apple. Write the trope. Take the easy way out.

“Flyers goaltending situation” is one of those topics. It has been one of those topics for more than 40 years. It was born of tragedy. Ever since Pelle Lindbergh’s death in a November 1985 car crash — just months after winning the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goalie — the Flyers have only occasionally and briefly felt settled at hockey’s most important position. At times, the players who have manned the position for them and the circumstances around them have been downright squirrelly.

» READ MORE: Flyers goalie Dan Vladař remains uncertain for Game 4 vs. Penguins

Ron Hextall slashed at opponents’ Achilles tendons and brawled with the best of the Orange and Black’s goons. He and Garth Snow struggled to stop shots from near center ice throughout the playoffs in the mid-1990s. John Vanbiesbrouck was signed to be a savior but wasn’t as good as a couple of other goalies the Flyers could have pursued. Roman Čechmánek annoyed his teammates so much that they fired pucks at his head during practice. And there’s no need to revisit Michael Leighton’s ugly 2010 Stanley Cup Final, Ilya Bryzgalov’s spacy personality and lousy play, the decision to trade away Sergei Bobrovsky, or the team’s general incompetence in net over the last three years.

Until Dan Vladař showed up.

Through his 52 games during this regular season and the first three games in this first-round series against the Penguins, Vladar has been more than the Flyers’ most important player. He did more than win 29 games and post a .906 save percentage, win the Bobby Clarke Trophy as the team’s MVP, then raise his game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, shutting them out in Game 2 and stopping 95% of the shots he has faced in the series. He had been the rarest kind of player in Flyers history: a goaltender whose play was excellent, who was well-liked and respected within the locker room, and who was no cause for concern.

Until Wednesday night.

In a third-period collision with the Penguins’ Bryan Rust in the Flyers’ 5-2 victory in Game 3, Vladař injured his right arm. (This being the NHL, the Flyers have not revealed the exact nature of the injury, because God forbid even a stuffy nose not be treated as if it were a KGB secret.) He did not practice on Thursday, and the team had an off day on Friday. Head coach Rick Tocchet referred to that 48-hour stretch as “maintenance days” for Vladař, which cast the netminder’s status for tonight’s Game 4 in a more optimistic light than the revelation that no one will know until game time whether he’ll play.

If Vladař can’t suit up, the task of finishing off the Penguins will fall to his backup, Sam Ersson, whose performance as the Flyers’ quasi-No. 1 goalie from 2023 to 2025 is one of the reasons the organization signed Vladař last summer in the first place. Over his three full NHL seasons, Ersson has never posted a save percentage higher than .890 — this season marked his career low, .870 — and he has appeared in just one game in the last two weeks.

“Whatever the positional player is, the person who’s next in line has to be ready,” Tocchet said Friday. “We as a staff and coaches talk about that every day with the player. It’s not something you talk to the team about, but it’s more an individual thing where you have to be ready because your number can be called anytime.”

Game 4 might be anytime. Can the Flyers win with Ersson? Of course. Through Games 1-3, they have, for the most part, kept the Penguins’ scorers on the perimeter, away from the most dangerous areas of the ice for a goaltender. They’ve been a great help to Vladař and could be to Ersson, and the latter could simply play a terrific game. But make no mistake: This is a hiccup in what had been a smooth series so far for the Flyers. This is a concern, a familiar one from their distant and recent pasts, and just because something is a trope doesn’t mean it’s not true.

» READ MORE: The Flyers won Game 3 the way they used to, and it all felt fresh and new and promising