VOORHEES, N.J. \u2014 It\u2019s a bit early to be putting Dan Vladar\u2019s name in the same sentence with Bernie Parent and Ron Hextall, but the Czech goalie\u2019s first season with the Flyers was excellent.<\/p>\n
All he did was better all his personal career statistics and finish third in the NHL in goals-against average. Only one other goaltender, Roman Cechmanek in 2000-01, has been named Flyers\u2019 MVP in his first year with the team.<\/p>\n
In the upcoming playoff series with Pittsburgh, just about everyone is in agreement that Vladar will have to be at his best for the Flyers to pull off what could be considered a mild upset.<\/p>\n
Coach Rick Tocchet believes his goalie is up to the task. He thinks the last 25 games since the Winter Olympics break have Vladar ready for the pressure of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you look at the last month, they\u2019re desperate playoff games,\u201d Tocchet said after Thursday\u2019s practice at the Flyers Training Center. \u201cHe\u2019s got a pretty good runway of these types of games. We\u2019re just playing the team (Penguins, in this series) more often. I don\u2019t know if that makes a big deal. I\u2019m not really worried. The fact that he played four or five in these pressure situations has helped him.<\/p>\n
Tocchet was asked what he learned about Vladar through the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery rarely was he just OK,\u201d the coach said. \u201cOr say he had a game that was just OK, the next game he\u2019s usually pretty strong. That says a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Vladar is experiencing any nerves about the upcoming challenge, it didn\u2019t come through in his answers to questions in the Flyers\u2019 locker room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to treat the games the same way, home or away,\u201d he said in response to the pressure of playing the opening game at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
Vladar had a bit of playoff experience in Boston and Calgary, so he does know what the atmosphere is like.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s exciting,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s why you play hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Any restless nights worrying about Sidney Crosby?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who shoots the puck, I\u2019ve just got to stop it,\u201d Vladar said with a grin.<\/p>\n
A strong playoff performance would continue a strong start to his journey to join the ranks of Parent and Hextall someday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VOORHEES, N.J. \u2014 It\u2019s a bit early to be putting Dan Vladar\u2019s name in the same sentence with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205,43,11211],"class_list":{"0":"post-554812","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-dln"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554812","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=554812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}