PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Dan Vladar has turned in a lot of excellent performances in goal for the Flyers this season. Saturday may have been one of his best.<\/p>\n
The Flyers goalie held the red-hot Bruins to a single goal, giving teammates space for a 3-1 win over Boston at a sold-out Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n
Vladar stopped 26 shots. Travis Konecny broke a scoreless tie 3:41 into the third period, and Jamie Drysdale added a goal at 11:55 as the Flyers won their second straight game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe (Vladar) has had a great year for us,\u201d coach Rick Tocchet said after the game. \u201cAnother outstanding effort from him.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Vladar perfect through 53 minutes, there was a sense that the Flyers wanted to do their best to win this one for their goaltender. Late in the second period, Vladar made a couple of sensational saves and received a loud ovation from the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means a lot,\u201d Vladar said. \u201cThe fans have been awesome the whole year. I\u2019ve said it so many times I don\u2019t want to waste this opportunity. We want to play special for them. Great job by them and we wouldn\u2019t be here without them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vladar has already played in 35 games, well beyond his career-high of 29. So far, so good.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s signed for two years as a free agent last summer. Has he thought about a longer stay with the Flyers?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s too early for that,\u201d he insisted. \u201cBut I wanted to come here. If I didn\u2019t want to stay here, I wouldn\u2019t be going here. Of course I would like to stay here but it\u2019s too early for that. Right now I\u2019m focusing on my team this season.\u201d<\/p>\n
The opening goal came when Konecny finished off an entry from Christian Dvorak. Drysdale converted a Konecny pass to make it 2-0. Boston scored with 6:57 to play by way of Charlie McAvoy to keep the outcome close.<\/p>\n
Drysdale has scored three goals in his last five games. He said the Flyers wanted to win this one for Vladar.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou saw the saves he made throughout that game,\u201d Drysdale said. \u201cThe shots were pretty low in the first two periods but pretty much all their shots were Grade A. He\u2019s been playing great and a big reason we came out with the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
About those intermission pep talks by Vladar \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the loudest guy in the room,\u201d Drysdale said. \u201cHe does so much off-ice as well. In between periods, he\u2019s always talking what\u2019s on his mind. There\u2019s some awesome stuff coming out of his mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from a spirited fight between Nick Deslauriers and Boston\u2019s Tanner Jeannot, there wasn\u2019t a whole lot for the crowd to get excited about early. Each team had a couple of scoring chances, but Vladar and Boston goalie Jeremy Swayman were able to successfully keep the firt 20 minutes scoreless.<\/p>\n
It was more of the same in the second. Vladar stoned Morgan Geekie from point-blank range at the five-minute mark. Swayman countered by stopping Dvorak\u2019s backhander from the doorstep later in the period.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Tocchet has been using Olympians Travis Sanheim and Rasmus Ristolainen in a top defense pairing. This gives Sanheim, a natural lefty shooter, a chance to move back to that side of the rink.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of like Sanny on the left side,\u201d Tocchet said before the game. \u201cWhen you have two big D like that, it\u2019s a luxury. I think having two 6-4 Ds who can move the puck, that can squash plays, that can skate \u2026 that\u2019s kind of our thought process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think since Risto has been in the lineup, he\u2019s played well for us. Sanny\u2019s been playing better, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Shot shots >> Rookie Denver Barkey was a healthy scratch. He has been struggling offensively, with one assist in his last eight games. He\u2019s dropped to a minus-7. \u2026\u00a0The Flyers head back to the road Monday for a game in Toronto. The Maple Leafs opened Saturday play tied for last place in the Atlantic Division. \u2026 Matvei Michkov\u2019s two-goal game against the Rangers on Thursday night give him 10 in his career. He moves into second place on the Flyers\u2019 all-time list of players with multi-goal games age 21 or younger. Eric Lindros tops the list with 17. \u2026 The Flyers entered Saturday third in the NHL with 16 comeback wins, five by two or more goals, which is second. \u2026 Since Jan. 19, the Flyers\u2019 89.7 percent penalty kill is second only to Chicago\u2019s 90.9. \u2026 Boston thought it had broken the scoreless tie with a goal by Hampus Lindholm at 1:05 of the third period, but it was disallowed for goaltender interference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Dan Vladar has turned in a lot of excellent performances in goal for the Flyers this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478147,"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-478146","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\/116151744276370755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478146","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=478146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}