June 03, 2026
A Dan Vladar contract extension seems like a matter of "when," not "if" for the Flyers.
On Tuesday, the NHL's top insider just about said as much.
"Vladar, I think it's pretty much done," Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman said over the radio on the Canadian network's The FAN Hockey Show. "I think he's got a five-year extension done in Philly. They just gotta...They can't do anything until July 1, officially, but you're allowed to talk to the player. So I wonder what that means for a guy like [Sam Ersson]."
Vladar signed a two-year free-agent contract last summer worth a total of $6.7 million.
At the time, general manager Danny Brière said he would be coming in to compete with Sam Ersson to try and be the No. 1 goaltender, which was curious considering that Vladar had never played more than 30 games between Boston and Calgary to that point in his career.
But by the end of the season, and then into the playoffs, the Philadelphia net was clearly his.
Vladar started a career-high 51 games, and posted a career-best 2.42 goals against average and .906 save percentage to steady the Flyers in the crease while a young team pushed to break a five-year playoff drought.
Then, once they were there, he was a rock for them, posting two shutouts in the first-round playoff series win over the Penguins – which included a 42-save effort deep into overtime of the clinching Game 6 – and a .922 save percentage across the Flyers' entire 10-game run into the second round.
At minimum, Vladar gave the Flyers a chance every night, even as they were struggling to score in an eventual second-round sweep from the East's top-seeded Hurricanes.
At his best, he outright stole games for them.
And once it was over, it was obvious and even openly joked about by both Vladar and Brière that an extension had to get done.
All signs point to things heading that way, if they're not already there.
"He blew the expectations that we had on him," Brière said of Vladar during his end-of-year press conference last month in Voorhees. "Going into the season, I know you guys all wrote about that, or spoke about it, how he had never played more than 30 games in a season in the NHL. Obviously, that was a worry for us, and that's why we thought it was going to be a good tandem with Sam, but he really took over and earned more starts."
"Because of the way he played in the playoffs, he didn't slow down, and he was just as good or even better in the playoffs," Brière added. "So that was really exciting to see. Yeah, it makes us believe that he could be the answer here for, hopefully, a few more years."
Ersson is an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent this summer.
He struggled through the first part of the season, but was strong down the stretch post-Olympic break as a more carefully used and more clearly defined backup to Vladar.
Ersson, during his exit day press conference last month, said that he loves Philadelphia, that it's the only place he's ever known in his North American hockey career, and that he would like to stick around.
But if he does, his starts would be limited, while opportunity is expected to open up elsewhere in a league that's suddenly looking starved for goalies – a potential market that Brière would have the ammo to capitalize on this summer through trade.
"All of a sudden, there's a lot of goalies out there," Friedman noted on the radio.
"Teams need them," the insider added. "There's not enough of them to go around, and now we're in a league where you need two."
You can listen to Friedman's full segment from Tuesday on Sportsnet radio HERE. The part about Vladar and Ersson begins around the 18:00 mark.
SIGN UP HERE to receive the PhillyVoice Sports newsletter
Follow Nick on Twitter: @itssnick
Follow Nick on Bluesky: @itssnick
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
