PHILADELPHIA – Dan Vladar has turned in a lot of excellent performance in goal for the Flyers this season but this might have been one of this best.
The Flyers goalie held the red-hot Bruins to a single goal as well as giving his teammates verbal encouragement between periods in Saturday’s 3-1 win over the Boston Bruins at a sold-out Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Vladar stopped 26 of 27 shots. Meanwhile, Travis Konecny broke a scoreless tie 3:41 into the third period and Jamie Drysdale added a second goal at 11:55 as the Flyers won their second straight game.
“He (Vladar) has had a great year for us,” coach Rick Tocchet said after the game. “Another outstanding effort from him.”
With Vladar perfect through 53 minutes, there was a sense the Flyers wanted to do their best to win this one for their goaltender.
Late in the second period, Vladar made a couple sensational saves and received a loud ovation from the XMA crowd.
“It means a lot,” Vladar said. “The fans have been awesome the whole year. I’ve said it so many times I don’t want to waste this opportunity. We want to play special for them. Great job by them and we wouldn’t be here without them.”
Vladar has already played in 35 games, well beyond his career-high of 29. So far, so good.
He’s signed for two years. Has he thought about a longer stay with the Flyers?
“It’s too early for that,” he insisted. “But I wanted to come here (he signed as a free agent). If I didn’t want to stay here, I wouldn’t be going here. Of course I would like to stay here but it’s too early for that. Right now I’m focusing on my team this season.”
The opening goal came when Konecny finished off an entry from Christian Dvorak. Later, Drysdale converted a Konecny pass to make it 2-0. Boston scored with 6:57 to play by way of a goal from Charlie McAvoy to keep the outcome close.
Drysdale has scored three goals in his last five games and that’s as good as it gets for a Flyers defenseman.
He said the Flyers wanted to win this one for Vladar.
“You saw the saves he made throughout that game,” Drysdale said. “The shots were pretty low in the first two periods but pretty much all their shots were Grade A.
“He’s been playing great and a big reason we came out with the win.”
About those intermission pep talks by Vladar. . .
“He’s the loudest guy in the room,” Drysdale said. “He does so much off-ice as well. In between periods, he’s always talkin’ what’s on his mind. There’s some awesome stuff coming out of his mouth.”
Aside from a spirited fight between the Flyers’ Nick Deslauriers and Boston’s Tanner Jeannot, there wasn’t a whole lot for the crowd to get excited about.
Both teams had a couple scoring chances but Vladar and Boston goalie Jeremy Swayman were able to successfully keep the 20 minutes scoreless.
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 Christian Dvorak’s backhander from the doorstep later in the period.
Konecny did not make himself available for comment after the game..
>Barkey a healthy scratch
Rookie Denver Barkey was a healthy scratch. He has been struggling offensively of late and he recently saw his plus-minus number drop to minus-7.
>Sanheim-Ristolainen a good pairing
Tocchet has been using Olympians Travis Sanheim and Rasmus Ristolainen in a top defense pairing. This gives Sanheim, a natural lefty shooter, to move back to that side of the rink.
“I kind of like ‘Sanny’ on the left side,” Tocchet said before the game. “When you have two big D like that, it’s a luxury. I think having two 6-4 D who can move the puck, that can squash plays, that can skate. . .that’s kind of our thought process. I think since ‘Risto’ has been in the lineup, he’s played well for us. Sanny’s been playing better too.”
>Short shots
The Flyers head back to the road on Monday for a game at Toronto against the Maple Leafs. Toronto opened Saturday play tied for last in the Atlantic Division. . .Deslauriers played in his 699th NHL game. . .Matvei Michkov’s two-goal game against the Rangers on Thursday night give him 10 in his career and move him into second place on the Flyers’ alltime list of players with multi-goal games age 21 or younger. Eric Lindros tops the list with 17. . .The Flyers entered Saturday action third in the NHL with 16 comeback wins and five of them by two or more goals, which is second in the league. . .Also, since Jan. 19, the Flyers’ 89.7 percent penalty kill is second only to Chicago’s 90.9. . .Boston thought it had broken the scoreless tie at 1:05 of the third period but the play was disallowed due to goaltender interference. . .The game attendance was 19,872.
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