After signing a 2-year contract this past summer, Dan Vladař outplayed his expectations by becoming the Philadelphia Flyers MVP in the 2025-26 season.
He ranked amongst the league’s best in GAA, SV%, and even games in which he allowed 2 goals or less, rivalling the likes of Andrei Vasilevskiy, Ilya Sorokin, and Jeremy Swayman, who were all Vezina Trophy finalists.
Naturally, with how well he played in the first year of his 2-year deal, extension talks have been brought up. Vladař isn’t allowed to officially sign one until July 1st of this year, but it sounds like the meat and potatoes have been agreed upon, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.
The venerated insider spoke on Sportsnet’s The FAN Hockey Show (Vladař quote begins around 18:28) and said he believes there’s a 5-year extension in play for Vladař but they’ll have to wait until the first of July to make the announcement.
On the surface, it’s a great deal for both sides because Vladař finally gets the long-term deal he’s been looking for after starting his career in Boston and Calgary, and the Flyers feel like they’ve locked down a number one goaltender after years of yearning.
However, similarly to Christian Dvorak’s midseason extension, it’s not so much the extension that’s the issue, it’s the term. Signing goaltenders in particular to long-term deals in the modern game is a very risky proposition, primarily because of the inconsistencies in between the pipes.
Jake Oettinger, for example, has failed to replicate his early-career success that saw him post a .916 SV% and a 2.42 GAA in his first 139 games. Since then he’s posted a .905 SV% and a 2.63 GAA for a perennial contender in Dallas, that included a .899 SV% in 54 games during the 2025-26 season.
Despite his recent struggles, he’s still only 27 years old and seen as one of the better goaltenders in the league, but if the trend continues – especially in the postseason – his $8.25 million cap hit for the next 7 years could be problematic for a team in need of cash.
Another example is Stanley Cup-winning goaltender Jordan Binnington. Since signing his 6-year deal, Binnington has posted a .898 SV% and a 3.04 GAA in 252 games for the St. Louis Blues. That run of play included this past season, where he went 13-20-7 with a .873 SV% and a 3.33 GAA while losing his hold on the starting job to Joel Hofer.
A very recent example is Juuse Saros out of Nashville. The Predators gambled a bit when they extended Saros to an 8-year deal in 2025, despite a ton of interest from rival teams, because not only was he struggling in goal for them at the time, it essentially signalled the end of Yaroslav Askarov’s time in Music City.
Saros has posted a .894 SV% and a 3.07 GAA over the last 2 seasons and has 7 years remaining on his deal at cap hit of $7.74 million that will stretch to his age-37 season.
Anthony Stolarz is another one that is somewhat comparable from the experience standpoint. Entering his first season in Toronto, the former Flyers product only played in 108 games across 8 seasons. He went on to lead the league in save percentage and became the number one goaltender before a concussion sidelined him in the second round.
He signed his extension before the start of the following season and struggled to the tune of a 101-10-3 record with a .893 SV% and a 3.28 GAA compared to the 21-8-3, .926 SV%, and 2.14 GAA the year prior. Injuries derailed his season but under contract for 4 more years, the Maple Leafs are in a pickle if he can’t replicate his 2024-25 self.
That’s not to say that Vladař is destined to follow in the footsteps of these goaltenders, but it’s few and far between that long-term deals at the position have worked out for both player and team.
Some long-term deals that might need a bit more time to judge include Sorokin, Swayman, and Igor Shesterkin.
Sorokin was overplayed and struggled down the stretch, which really ruined his chances at running away with the Vezina Trophy. Swayman bounced back from a disastrous 2024-25 season that saw his SV% drop 24 points from the year prior and his GAA jump by 58 points. Meanwhile Shesterkin was the only positive in an otherwise disastrous season for the Rangers.
Another interesting case study is Connor Hellebuyck who was coming off back-to-back Vezina Trophy winning seasons and was league MVP in 2024-25. To say he struggled for the majority of the season is an understatement but after claiming gold at the Winter Olympics, he played like the MVP to end the season. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to drag the Jets back into the playoffs.
However, the main caveat here is that Hellebuyck, Shesterkin, Sorokin, and Swayman are arguably the four best goaltenders in the league today, making them the outliers of the conversation. Vladař was in that conversation in 2025-26 but a one-year sample size makes it all that much more risky.
Nevertheless, it’s a risk worth taking for the Flyers who have been looking for stability in between the pipes for a long time, but it’s a bit premature to extend him on the very first day of eligibility. It shows that the front office is extremely confident in his abilities, but if he struggles to start the 2026-27 season, it will bring about a lot of questions about their cap management and their instincts to sign long-term deals prematurely.
What this deal will also accomplish is allowing Carson Bjarnason to marinate in the minors and Yegor Zavragin to continue to excel in Russia. Bjarnason in particular struggled in his first full season at the professional ranks and will likely need a few more years of development until he makes his way to the big leagues.
As for Samuel Ersson, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether or not he will return to Philadelphia next season. Scheduled to be an RFA this summer, it’s being reported that the front office isn’t too keen in bringing him back and could look elsewhere for a backup in 2026-27.
The hope is that Vladař can improve on his 29-14-7 record that also saw him post a .907 SV% and a 2.42 GAA in 52 regular season games. He was even better in the playoffs with a .922 SV% and a 2.18 GAA to go along with 2 shutouts, one of which came in a series-clinching game against Pittsburgh.
At the very least, if he can give them that level of performance for the next year and beyond, that will go a long way in their hopes of finally exiting the rebuild and into playoff contention with a legitimate netminder in the fold.
To say Vladař was excellent in 2025-26 is an understatement; he was almost the only reason why they even made the playoffs and won their first round matchup. That level of play deserves an extension, but it remains to be seen if he will be the mean or the outlier to the long-term extension conundrum at the goaltending position.
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