Could a Dan Vladar injury change the Flyers-Penguins series? Here's what history says

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I happened to be covering the two “reverse sweeps” that I was actually alive for, as part of the Flyers’ web content team in 2010, when they stormed back to beat the Boston Bruins in the second round, and as a beat writer in 2014 for then-Comcast SportsNet Bay Area covering the San Jose Sharks, who blew a first-round series to the Kings. Los Angeles went on to win the Stanley Cup that year. My initial idea for this column was to write about how this Flyers-Penguins series doesn’t at all resemble that Flyers-Bruins series or Kings-Sharks series. And we’ll get to that, as the Flyers have utterly dominated the Penguins in just about every way. But the uncertainly now over Flyers goalie Dan Vladar changes things a bit. If Vladar misses any time, it could open the door just a crack for a Penguins team that’s going to be grasping at anything it can to push this series back to Pittsburgh for a Game 5 on Monday. The 2010 Flyers and the 2014 Kings are examples of how quickly a series can change with just one ill-timed injury. The biggest commonality between what the 2010 Flyers and 2014 Kings did in making history is that they took advantage of a key player on the other side coming out. In Game 3 of the Flyers-Bruins series, Mike Richards’ devastating open-ice hit on David Krejčí — resulting in a broken wrist for the centerman — was a pivotal moment. Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what Chris Pronger told me when I put together a 10th anniversary oral history of that playoff run in 2020: “(The Krejčí injury) kind of weakened their power play and weakened their second line,” Pronger said. “It created a chain of events and kind of mucked up their lineup and the way they like to roll lines, and all the rest of that.” There was a similar turning point in the Kings-Sharks series. In Game 5, after the Kings had already established a bit of momentum, the Sharks’ Marc-Edouard Vlasic — then viewed as perhaps the best defensive defenseman in the league — took a high hit from Jarrett Stoll late in the first period, ending his series. The Sharks were not the same team without their rock on the blue line, and the Kings essentially rolled from there, winning games 5-7 by a combined 12-2 score. Vladar is just as important to the Flyers as Krejčí was to the Bruins and Vlasic was to the Sharks, if not more so. The recipient of the Bobby Clarke Trophy as Flyers MVP in the regular season, Vladar has continued to roll in the playoffs with a .946 save percentage, 1.33 goals-against average and a shutout in Game 2. It’s safe to assume that if Sam Ersson leads the Flyers out of the tunnel for Game 4, the Penguins will feel similarly to how Dan Carcillo recalled the Flyers did 16 years ago. “When Richie knocked out Krejčí,” Carcillo said, “then we’re just saying, ‘Oh boy, let’s f—ing go.’” Could Vladar’s injury be enough to get the Penguins back into the series? Maybe. Even with Ersson’s strong play coming out of the Olympic break, it’s still difficult to trust him completely, considering how poor his numbers were for the prior season and a half before that. Would it be enough to help the Penguins actually come back and win this series? That’s much more difficult to envision. This Flyers-Penguins series so far hasn’t been nearly as competitive as those others were. Flyers fans of a certain age may remember that it took overtime for the Bruins to take Philadelphia down in Game 1, 5-4. In Game 2, it was 2-2 through two periods when Milan Lucic’s goal with 2:57 left to play in regulation was the game-winner. As Kimmo Timonen told me in 2020: “Even if we were down 3-0, we thought that we were, not the better team, but we should have earned maybe one or two wins out of those three games.” The Penguins aren’t saying that at all, instead focusing on the officiating after Game 3. As for the Kings in 2014, the Sharks did wax them pretty good in the first two games, 6-3 and 7-2. But the tide started to turn in Game 3, when the Kings outplayed them before losing 4-3 in overtime. Further, the Sharks teams of that era were already known for choking in the playoffs, routinely coming up small when the pressure was ratcheted up. Many of those Kings, on the other hand, had just won the Stanley Cup two years earlier. “Once we won that first game in the San Jose series, we kind of had a feeling we were going to come back and win that series, and you could see it in their eyes and their team and their captains and leaders that they were worried about us coming back,” Drew Doughty later told reporters. Yes, the Penguins have players with a championship pedigree in Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang. But Malkin and Letang, in particular, are shells of their former selves — especially Letang, who has been on the ice for seven of the Flyers’ 11 goals in the series (and just one Penguins goal). If Crosby was going to singlehandedly turn the series around, it probably would have had to happen in Game 3. Instead, he acted as if Garnet Hathaway’s errant stick was a samurai sword. Further, as strong as Vladar has been, the story of the series so far hasn’t been the goaltending. The Flyers’ primary advantage so far has been the defensive play in front of Vladar, as detailed by Harman Dayal and Shayna Goldman here. The Penguins are likely to come out for Game 4 with a desperate push, but as long as the Flyers maintain the structure they’ve shown so far, Ersson should be able to get the job done, particularly with a so-so Stuart Skinner on the other side. Ersson has already shown he can raise his level in pressure situations, earning a shutout in his only start at the 4 Nations Face-Off last year and playing very well for Team Sweden in the 2025 World Championships (in five games, Ersson was 4-0 with a .934 save percentage and 1.16 goals-against average with two shutouts). Losing Vladar for any amount of time wouldn’t be ideal. The Flyers need him if they’re going to continue their unlikely playoff run. But it shouldn’t change where this first-round series is ultimately headed, with the Flyers moving on and the Penguins eventually examining just where they’re headed as an organization. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms