VOORHEES, N.J. \u2014 On the ice, he\u2019s all business. Off it, Dan Vladar can crack up teammates with the best of them.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s somewhat unusual for goaltenders, who normally keep to themselves at such an intense position.<\/p>\n
Vladar\u2019s personality, in addition to his brilliant play, is a chief reason why the Flyers remain in playoff contention. Without him, this might already be a lost season.<\/p>\n
Vladar says he chose to sign as a free agent with the Flyers last summer partly because he believed he could let his leadership shine. When he skates over to the Flyers\u2019 bench during a timeout to give an impromptu pep talk, coach Rick Tocchet can\u2019t help but smile.<\/p>\n
Same for Noah Cates, who appreciates what Vladar brings to the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he says something, it carries weight,\u201d Cates said after Wednesday\u2019s practice at the Flyers Training Center. \u201cHe\u2019s pulling his weight, so when he says something, you want to play hard for him because he\u2019s battling his ass off every night and giving us a chance to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vladar has played a career-high number of games at 32 but shows no signs of slowing down. He\u2019s won 17, and his goals-against average (2.49) and save percentage (.904) have hovered around the NHL\u2019s top 10 for most of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been one of our best players this year,\u201d Cates said. \u201cWhat he does during TV timeouts or in the locker room is pretty remarkable. On the ice he\u2019s been a great addition. He\u2019s nice to be around, he says hi to everyone. Then on the ice he\u2019s pretty funny, too. Just great to be around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vladar, who will play for the Czech Republic at the Olympics, takes all of the leadership talk in stride. When the 28-year-old said goodbye to the Calgary Flames last summer, the Flyers came up on the radar because it looked like a team that could use an experienced hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have a pretty young group,\u201d he said. \u201cBunch of players who are just about to turn their best age. The future is here for sure.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially me, I\u2019m not a young guy anymore. I think I can bring something to the table. Whether it\u2019s a little advice or something that I see. Especially from my view, as a goalie you\u2019re by yourself all the time. So we have a lot of time that we can see stuff from a different view than guys see on the bench.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having a strong rapport with his teammates can make a difference. When players go to block shots, it helps if you really want to protect that guy. Position players might not be shy at offering advice, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m willing to listen to the guys as well,\u201d Vladar said. \u201cIf they see something in my game. If they shoot and score on me (in practice), I ask, \u2018was there a lot of room there? What did you see?;\u201d<\/p>\n
There haven\u2019t been a lot of those conversations in games because Vladar has been consistently frugal. He\u2019s allowed more than three goals only six times.<\/p>\n
Those timeout talks have been invaluable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m doing it for my teammates,\u201d Vladar reiterated. \u201cWhether it\u2019s everyone or one-on-one conversation. If I see a nice play, a guy shooting in a good spot. . .even if the puck rolls on his stick, I tell him he\u2019s doing the right thing. If he keeps doing that he\u2019s going to score and or make a nice play, whatever that might be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tocchet grinned when reminded that he\u2019ll be coaching against his goalie as part of the Team Canada staff in Milan, with play opening Feb. 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoalies don\u2019t like to be boisterous a lot,\u201d the coach said. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t do it all the time but he does it at a good time. He\u2019s on the positive side. Even when we\u2019re down three-nothing, he\u2019ll come over and say, \u2018we\u2019re still in the game.\u2019 That\u2019s pretty cool when your goalie says that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Defenseman Emil Andrae, who leads all Flyers defensemen with a plus-11 but has been scratched the last four games, remains a question mark for Thursday\u2019s home game against Ottawa.<\/p>\n
Tocchet said he\u2019s reluctant to make personnel moves to his penalty kill unit because it has allowed just four goals in the last 27 opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the Vegas game we\u2019re something like 87 percent,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cWe\u2019re thinking about playing him tomorrow but the PK, that\u2019s where we lose a guy. That\u2019s something we\u2019re discussing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Travis Konecny had another day off from practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s dealing with some stuff,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cHe wanted to go out today but I didn\u2019t want him out. It\u2019s just bumps and bruises. Sometimes it\u2019s hard to play through those things. The last six weeks he\u2019s really taken it upon himself to make sure his game is clean.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VOORHEES, N.J. \u2014 On the ice, he\u2019s all business. Off it, Dan Vladar can crack up teammates with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205,43,5095],"class_list":{"0":"post-445894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-flyers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","13":"tag-philadelphiaflyers","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116014712428395221","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}