Flyers-Wild takeaways: Already up to three goals, Owen Tippett flashes his size and speed

For the second straight game, the Flyers faced a road team fine playing the long game in a low-event contest.

Saturday night’s game saw a combined 106 shot attempts, with just 37 shots needing to be stopped by the netminders. But unlike Thursday’s loss to the Winnipeg Jets, the Flyers beat the Minnesota Wild, 2-1, in overtime on a goal by Noah Cates.

The Flyers are now 2-2-1, and here are two key contributors who helped them get to .500.

The season is only five games old, but Owen Tippett has been flying around the ice in midseason form. On Saturday night, he notched his third goal; the last two seasons, it took him 14 games to reach that mark, with his first goal coming both years in Game 7.

“I said it since the start of camp, coming in with a clear mind after maybe not the start I wanted last year,” he said. “And, you know, a clean slate and just going game by game.”

Once again, Tippett was clearly one of the Flyers’ best players as he used his legs and big body to create opportunities. On Thursday, the speedy winger scored with a burst through the neutral zone before firing off a shot from the right faceoff circle.

On Saturday, he tried a similar move in the second period, this time using his legs and cutting to the middle before sending a backhand wide. He had four missed shots and another one blocked, but didn’t let that deter him as he scored on his fourth of five shots, staying with the play — after his initial shot couldn’t be handled cleanly by goalie Jesper Wallstedt — before banking it in.

There wasn’t much speed on the goal, and while Minnesota defenseman Brock Faber had to transition to defense quickly after Trevor Zegras and Christian Dvorak created a neutral zone turnover, you had to wonder whether the knowledge that Tippett can turn it on was on the blueliner’s mind.

“You just saw his speed and his confidence going,” Cates said. “He scored two nights ago. He scored tonight. So when he gets into the game, you can see, he turns the tide. He can be a one-man show with his speed. So obviously, we need him to keep going.”

Added Zegras, who got the primary assist: “He’s the fastest skater I’ve ever seen. It’s awesome. “I’ve never played with a guy that has that much speed. And he does some wild stuff. I think he did like a spin-o-rama in the third period. I’m just like, oh my God. Somebody so big that skates that fast, it’s fun to watch.”

Although NHL Edge had Bobby Brink as the Flyers’ fastest skater with a max burst of 23.30 mph, that was his only one. Tippett’s max right now is 22.89, but he’s had six bursts at 22-plus, 18 at 20-22 mph, and 40 at 18-20 mph.

“I think that’s one of the things I’ve kind of focused on is if my legs are there, the rest will kind of follow,” Tippett said. “I think there’s times when I don’t need to be going 100 miles an hour all the time, but I think if I can get in the first shift or two, if I can kind of feel my legs a little bit, it usually sets me up pretty well.”

Several eyebrows were raised externally when the Flyers signed Dan Vladař on July 1. It’s early, and he’s only made three starts, but those naysayers are certainly being proved wrong right now.

Vladař has stepped up and become not just a reliable goalie partner for Sam Ersson — something that was desperately needed after the 25-year-old Swede carried the workload the last two seasons — but has maybe even supplanted him.

» READ MORE: New Flyers goalie Dan Vladař says he’s coming to compete. His underlying numbers are intriguing.

After an impressive 32-save performance against the two-time defending champion Florida Panthers in a loss on opening night, he stopped 24 of 26 in a win against the same team in the home opener. Vladař earned his second win of the season, stopping 15 of 16 shots against the Wild.

“He’s a big guy who moves well,” said Cates, adding that he has a big personality to boot. “Any time you’ve got a guy with that size, you’re going to have to pick corners pretty precisely. And, he’s kept us in a lot of games.

“Every time he’s in there, we trust him back there — both our goalies have been great so far, and we trust both of them back there. But he’s put up some big minutes for us so far, made some big saves.”

Minnesota didn’t make it easy for Vladař. Although Natural Stat Trick had him down for just three saves on high-danger shots — the lone goal by Vladimir Tarasenko was mid-danger — the stat is a little misleading. Several of the nine low-danger saves he was credited with came despite screens set or players skating through the slot as the shot was being taken.

“You know that’s their strength,” said Vladař, who entered the night with a 3-1-1 record and .896 save percentage against the Wild across five games. “They really get in front of the goalies, and really good at tipping the pucks and stuff. They’ve got a big, heavy team. So, you know, good for them, but I thought we had our legs tonight and we played a really good hockey [game].”

The idea behind coach Rick Tocchet’s box-and-one defense is to keep shots to the outside and allow the goaltender to see it. The Wild, a team Tocchet has seen quite a bit in his last few years with the Vancouver Canucks, have several big guys who try to take away the goalie’s eyes — like Joel Eriksson Ek, who tipped a shot as he was backing in for the screen on a power-play in the second period. But part of the coach’s system is to avoid double deflections. The Flyers blocked 16 shots, but it looked like they avoided those double deflections that can trick goalies.

But while he was great at dealing with the traffic, Vladař also moves and reads plays exceptionally well. He didn’t get an assist on the game-winner, but after making a glove save on Matt Boldy, he opted to play the puck despite Marco Rossi being there and all over Jamie Drysdale. Luckily, the fleet-footed skater got away, and 15 seconds later, Cates scored.

“He’s great,” Zegras said of Vladař. “I saw a ton of him over the last couple of years when he was in Calgary, and he was always unbelievable. He’s just so big and great at keeping pucks into the corner and plays it really well, too. So he was awesome tonight.”