Should the Flyers Be Worried About Dan Vladař’s Save Percentage?

After reaching the playoffs and winning a round in 2025-26, the Philadelphia Flyers are off to the most calamitous start in franchise history: a nine-game winless streak to open the 2026-27 campaign. With another defeat on Saturday night against the Ottawa Senators, they’d be one of 11 teams ever to reach the double-digit game mark without a victory.

The biggest reason for the Flyers’ struggles has been their skaters. According to Natural Stat Trick, the team’s 34.12% expected goal share at 5-on-5 is the worst mark in the league—below the rebuilding Chicago Blackhawks and Vancouver Canucks by four and five percentage points, respectively.

But what about the goaltending? Offseason trade addition Joseph Woll has been fantastic, putting up a .916 save percentage and 2.77 goals-against average despite a dismal 0-3-2 record. Dan Vladař, on the other hand, who received a five-year extension over the summer, does not have the same sparkling stat line: a .875 save percentage and 4.21 goals-against average. Is that cause for concern?

Vladař’s Numbers Are Skewed by the Penguins Game

The Flyers set the tone for their winless streak in Game 1 when they dropped a 7-0 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins on home ice. Vladař was in the net for every goal, stopping 24 of 31 shots that came his way.

For the most part, that contest was a one-off for the 29-year-old. In the three games since, he has a .898 save percentage, 3.29 goals-against average, and, according to Hockey Stats, 0.0 goals saved above expected.

That’s not the high-end form Vladař was at last season, however. The Flyers wouldn’t have made the playoffs if it weren’t for his efforts, and they certainly wouldn’t have beaten the Penguins in Round 1. Following Game 1, he’s been mostly average.

The Flyers knew the risk when they gave Vladař a five-year, $27.5 million extension back in July. He was a career backup who had a stellar 2025-26 campaign as a starter with the Orange and Black. Was last season a fluke, or should we expect him to bounce back?

What the Numbers Say, Historically

Below is every goaltender with at least 1,000 unblocked shot attempts faced in back-to-back seasons between 2007-08 and 2025-26, comparing their all-situations save percentage in Year 1 and Year 2 (cor = 0.318, p < 0.001, n = 591).

Now, this doesn’t actually tell us anything about Vladař. What he will be this season and once his new contract kicks in next season is technically a mystery. But I also wouldn’t be worried about his start thus far and what it means for his future.

Flyers’ Goaltending Is the Least of Their Issues

Returning to the year-over-year save percentage graphic above, Samuel Ersson is the goalie in the bottom-left corner. He showed some promise as a rookie in Philadelphia, but the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons were ones he’d like to forget.

Think of it this way. Ersson was essentially putting up Vladař’s numbers now—which we should expect to improve pretty dramatically, given the weirdness of the Penguins game—across two full seasons. Goaltending is the least of the Flyers’ concerns.

Through nine games, Philadelphia’s team save percentage at 5-on-5 ranks 15^th in the league, per Evolving-Hockey. In reality, it’s the skaters who are contributing to the losing. In Vladař’s two “bad” games, where he allowed 12 goals across the two of them, the Flyers combined for one goal. There wasn’t anything he could have done.

So, let’s focus on the skaters’ struggles. Aaron Knodell, on his Substack page Puck Over the Glass, wrote a very good piece on regression yesterday that I suggest you check out. In it, he spent a little bit of time highlighting the Flyers’ disastrous start to the season.

While the team has put up a terrible expected goals mark (34.12%, as mentioned earlier), Philadelphia is still underperforming that mark with one of the league’s worst shooting percentages. Furthermore, that expected goals number is definitely unsustainable. We think of expected goals as an indicator of true talent, but the Flyers aren’t, as Knodell put it, “on the same level as the McDavid tank-a-thon Sabres.” The Orange and Black are in a funk—simple as that.

Now, whether the Flyers will make the playoffs is a different conversation. With the hole they’ve found themselves in, I feel pretty confident in saying “no,” even if I’ve been burned on that assumption before (literally last season). So, while the team as a whole has played worrisome hockey, it is far too early to be concerned about Vladař, or any individual player on the roster, really.