Although the contract has not been officially confirmed or announced by the team, it appears that Philadelphia Flyers and goaltender Dan Vladar are going to be together for a while longer. Vladar’s two-year, $6.7 million contract has this upcoming 2026-27 season remaining, but indications are the team and player are set to announce a five-year contract extension when free agent frenzy rolls around on July 1. The exact details or cap hit have not been revealed, nor if there’s any clauses in the deal regarding no trade or no movement parameters. However, recent reports believe the deal is “pretty much done” with the cap hit in the ballpark of between $5.5 million to $6 million a season.
Vladar isn’t the first goaltender who had a breakout season and then used that one year to reap a lot of financial benefits and security. Heading into this year, Vladar was nearing $8 million in career earnings. So another $27 million to $30 million in his coffers will be handy. However, does a five-year deal for a goaltender who will be 30 years old in year one of the extension look favorable? We’ll take a look at some similar deals for goaltenders, and see how some of them panned out. For the most part, many recent deals for goaltenders not named Connor Hellebuyck, Ilya Sorokin, or Igor Shesterkin have been in roughly the same zone as what Vladar’s reported upcoming extension sounds like, so for that Flyers general manager Danny Briere should be applauded.
Filip Gustavsson (5 years, $34M, $6.8 AAV)
Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson will be 28 when his next contract begins. The deal with Minnesota came after Gustavsson had a solid 2024-25 season, playing 58 games with a record of 31-19-6. He also posted a 2.56 goals-against average and a nifty .914 save percentage. He also posted five shutouts. This past season, with the Swedish keeper still wrapping up his previous contract, Gustavsson had four shutouts and was marginally worse in goals-against average (2.69) and save percentage (.904). Unfortunately he had a bad start in the playoffs this past season and never saw the ice again.
Gustavsson’s deal compared to Vladar’s should probably age just as well. Of course, one bad start in the playoffs resulted in him riding the bench as Minnesota went with Jesper Wallstedt. However, it’s doubtful Gustavsson won’t enter this season as the favored starter, especially starting this new deal which includes a full no movement clause the first two seasons and a modified no movement clause the final three seasons. Having nearly $7 million invested in a guy wearing a baseball cap most of this year doesn’t seem like a logical premise. And when the contract ends in 2030-31, it’s expected Gustavsson’s AAV will take up just under five per cent of the whole pie (4.9 per cent). So should Vladar’s deal come in at around $6 million AAV, that percentage of the total cap (estimated to be around $113.5 million for the ceiling) by 2030-31 would be roughly 5.3 per cent. Not a huge amount for Vladar who could ideally still be going strong for Philadelphia or if not, then a possible solid backup at a frugal cap hit.
Adin Hill (6 years, $37.5 million, $6.25 AAV)
Although Hill is playing second fiddle to another goaltender in Vegas currently, he was rewarded with a six-year contract in March 2025. The deal began this past season, and Hill had a trying 2025-26 playing just 27 games with a 3.04 goals-against average and a Sam Ersson-esque .871 save percentage. Hill, who turned 30 in May, had an injury-plagued year, starting in October with a lower body injury that was week-to-week before missing 38 consecutive games with an injury that was also lower body. Given how the first year of this deal went rather pear-shaped for both the team and the player, it’s important that Hill starts 2026-27 with a clean slate to ensure he’s ready to go. And that the contract — which contains a modified no trade clause in every season (from ten to eight to eventually six teams) — doesn’t become an albatross to Vegas.
Again, should Vladar’s deal come in at less term and a smaller cap hit, it appears that Philadelphia might have ended up making a wise decision jumping the gun. Hesitating and waiting for another strong year from Vladar might put that AAV well north of $6 million or close to $7 million over five years.
Mackenzie Blackwood (5 years, $26.25 million, $5.25M AAV)
Every goaltender has a different road to becoming a NHL goaltender, and Mackenzie Blackwood seems to mirror that of Vladar’s quite a bit. Blackwood started out in New Jersey, having one quality season in 2019-20 but not able to replicate it for the Devils the following three years. He then ended up in San Jose but couldn’t quite put it all together there either, playing 63 games over two seasons. However, the third team was the charm, with Blackwood appearing in almost 40 games each of the last two years and with save percentages both seasons over .900. Colorado rewarded him in December 2024 with this current contract which kicked in this past year. Blackwood, who turns 30 this December, has been solid in the last two regular seasons. But, unlike Vladar in his first true playoff experience, Blackwood was a bit leaky in both playoff campaigns.
Vladar, who had short stints with Boston and couldn’t be the starter in Calgary, might have, like Blackwood, found his footing with his third team in Philadelphia. And again, having Vladar signing a deal that would be somewhat comparable (or even a little steeper in AAV) to Blackwood’s would be possibly very good work done by Briere. Of course injuries, or Vladar becoming a shadow of his 2025-26 self, would big a huge fly in the ointment. Yet a deal in the range of Blackwood’s wouldn’t be a huge gamble it appears.
Joey Daccord (5 years, $25 million, $5M AAV)
After things didn’t work out in Ottawa, Joey Daccord found a second wind in Seattle. Daccord had a 2023-24 season similar to Vladar’s first year with the Flyers. He played 50 games, had a 2.46 goals-against average, and a .916 save percentage. In short, a very solid year despite the win/loss record hovering around .500. The following year Kraken general manager Ron Francis rewarded Daccord with this current five-year deal. And in 2024-25, Daccord again proved himself in the final year of his previous contract, with eight more wins, a slightly higher goals-against average and a .906 save percentage. So it looked, based on two strong seasons, that the extension would seem logical.
Well, 2025-26 was a forgettable one for the Kraken keeper. In 47 games his saver percentage dropped to .897 while his goals-against average ballooned to 3.03. Daccord wasn’t injured, outside of being placed on injured reserve for 10 days back in November, similar to the two weeks Vladar was out in January. It’s this type of season, particularly in year one of a long-term deal, which could send horrible shivers in all directions. We’ll never know if the contract was in the back of Daccord’s mind, with him putting additional pressure on himself to shine. Or if the Kraken’s front office is now regretting the deal the now departed Francis did. What is true is that, outside of a Jack Campbell or Tristan Jarry scenario, this is the type of season that Vladar doesn’t need to have in 2026-27, and especially in 2027-28.
If there’s one upside to the Daccord contract, he has no clout with movement. The clause-free deal means he can head anywhere to a team buying or needing a goaltender. So while it’s doubtful Vladar would leave a little more on the table and also have no protection in terms of movement, giving him full control with such clauses could come back to bite Briere and Philadelphia in the backside.
In the end
We’ll know the numbers of this foreseeable Vladar contract probably a month from now when the announcement is made. In terms of length, the general consensus for most goaltenders who aren’t elite but not journeymen is five years. The following goaltenders beside those listed above includes the following: Joonas Korpisalo, Kevin Lenkinen, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Karel Vejmelka, Thatcher Demko, Darcy Kuemper, Tristan Jarry, Elvis Merzlikins, and Lukas Dostal. So the term Vladar is looking at seems to fall in line with most NHL teams. If Briere can end up with Vladar having a cap hit between the reported AAVs of $5.5 million to $6 million, then he is probably going to fare quite well provided Vladar can deliver for a few seasons right out of the gate.
Ideally, Vladar is still playing well on the latter end of the contract, and he is possibly in a tandem situation with hopefully Carson Bjarnason or Yegor Zavragin. Should Vladar struggle next season, it’s probably almost a given the Flyers won’t be a playoff team. If he’s near the heights he was this past year, then Philadelphia should be easily looking at post-season action. Vladar was basically pulling his own weight and that of Sam Ersson’s for the first two-thirds of the season. Had Ersson showed any semblance of consistent quality starts in the backup role, the Flyers probably wouldn’t had to go on the torrid hot streak they did in March and April to compensate. As it stands now, Vladar will be rewarded for this past season, a season the Flyers hope will be repeated more often than not during the next six years Vladar looks to be here.
Stats and contract information courtesy of Capwages.com
