Injury Bug Strikes Flyers as Dan Vladar’s Status Puts Season Opener in Doubt

The Flyers were dealt the worst possible hand in their second preseason game in Boston: Daniel Vladar was hurt in the first period.

Vladar left the Flyers’ exhibition game against the Bruins in the first period with an upper-body injury, and the timing could not be worse. The regular season opens in a week at home against the Pittsburgh Penguins next Wednesday. Vladar is not just the Flyers’ starting goaltender; he is the beating heart of the franchise and largely responsible for ending a five-year playoff drought last season.

Vladar’s injury occurred with 6:29 left in the first period. He reached for a loose rebound after making a save; he lost his stick, and it appeared that Tanner Jeannot made contact with his arm after he lost the stick while crashing the net. Shortly after, Michael Eyssimont drove home the ensuing rebound for the first goal of the game. Vladar immediately started favoring his arm and skated to the bench before disappearing down the tunnel. The original plan was for Vladar to play the first two periods, and Aleksei Kolosov replacing him in the third, but Kolosov was thrust into action before this, en route to a 5-1 Bruins win.

Head Coach Rick Tocchet said after the game that Vladar was being evaluated, without giving any indication of the severity of the injury. That leaves the Flyers with a thinner goalie room, and without the team’s MVP last season, at least for the time being. Tocchet recognized the difficult situation that Kolosov came into, entering a game close in the middle with little warning.

“These are tough situations,” Tocchet said. “They put him in right away, so yeah he held it together.”

Historical context makes this injury sting a bit more. Vladar dealt with a similar injury to the same arm in the first-round playoff series against the Penguins. He played through it, helping the Flyers eliminate the Penguins. He responded well enough to get past Pittsburgh and lose to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes. None of that gives any insight into how bad the upper-body injury is, but it does punctuate the importance of the trade for Joseph Woll in the offseason.

Vladar’s importance to the team carries more gravity than losing the second game of the preseason, especially against most of the squad that the Bruins will lean on during the season. This injury comes right after he signed a five-year, $27.5 million extension, shoring up the biggest weakness for the Flyers in seasons past. Luckily, General Manager Daniel Danny Briere made the smart move to strengthen that position in the offseason and traded for Woll to give Vladar a proven backup, rather than the questionable goalies that the Flyers have had as backups for a while.

Vladar was not the only injury that Tocchet addressed. Forward Denver Barkey, who had a strong showing in Rookie Camp and in the main camp, was hurt in the Flyers’ first preseason game against the Washington Capitals. Tocchet was asked about his status before the Bruins game. He was direct in ruling out anything long-term, but didn’t want to get ahead of himself either.

“I don’t think it’s serious, but I don’t want to put myself out there and then next thing he’s out for four months,” Tocchet said. “But he’s not going to be out for four months. It’s just day-to-day. Trust me.”

Barkey went down after a hard first-period hit from Capitals defenseman Martin Fehervary on Monday, getting up slowly along the boards, before briefly testing the injury on one shift to open the second period. As a precaution, he did not return, and the club has since described the issue as a lower-body injury.

Between the injuries in the first games to Vladar and Barkey, the Flyers go into the final week of the short exhibition schedule managing two injury situations at once, leaving the coaching staff to try and work around losing two pieces of the roster puzzle in back-to-back games.

The season opener adds another interesting layer to everything. The Flyers will host the Penguins on the same sheet of ice where their season ended unceremoniously this spring. This is the same opponent that Vladar battled a similar injury against, willing the Flyers to victory. If he isn’t able to play in the season opener, the emotion changes considerably for the game. It also shrinks the Flyers’ margin for error against a Penguins squad that had all offseason to think about that loss.

For the Flyers, who spent the offseason adding where they needed help, this is the first real test, and the games don’t even count yet. The Flyers are in need of getting through the next two preseason games without any further injuries, especially to key contributors, if they want to get off to a good start.

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