Heading into this season, there were a lot of prospective debates happening around which Flyers will be called up for their country to represent them at the Milano-Cortina Olympic games. Names like Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim, who were selected for their respective countries at the Four Nations Face-Off, immediately come to mind as the prime names that would be discussed as the Flyers most senior, best players.
But while those players will try to break into teams that have a host of options all over the ice, there’s one Flyer in particular who’s been just as important, and has an even better shot to play a leading role on a medal hopeful.
Dan Vladar has taken the reins as the Flyers starting goalie after joining the team this offseason. His strong start, combined with some early struggles from Sam Ersson, has thrust him into the spotlight, where he has succeeded to the tune of a .909 save percentage and a 2.42 goals against average. And in Vladar’s case, he comes from a country in Czechia who suffers from a bit of a goalie drought on the international stage.
While Czechia wasn’t selected as one of the Four Nations to participate in the tournament last year, but they were at the 2025 World Championships, and in a competition that was no doubt a bit of a dress rehearsal for next year’s Olympic games, Vladar was one of the two goalies selected for that team. Alongside Utah’s Karel Vejmelka, who started in five contests, Vladar played four games, and drastically outperformed his contemporary, putting up a stellar 1.09 GAA and a .951 SP% with three wins in all his starts.
Combine that with his strong start to the season, and it seems like the 28-year old Flyer netminder has placed himself in front of names like Vejmelka, Anaheim’s Lukas Dostal, and Montreal’s young Jakub Dobes for Olympic consideration. And with his roster spot now seeming like a relative certainty, barring injury, there is a genuine conversation brewing that he deserves to be the de-facto start for Team Czechia.
There are only three Czech NHL goalies that have been their team’s starting goaltender this season: Vladar, Vejmelka, and Dostal. Vladar split starts with Ersson to begin the season, and has only really begun to start taking the lion’s share of the starts relatively recently, so he has played a handful less games than both of the other options, but he has still had the best rate numbers out of all three, and that is despite a recent beatdown he had to endure in his last start when the Flyers fell to the Stars.
To leave Vladar at home, the Czech brass would have to leave behind a player who has impressed basically every time he has represented his country since he was playing under-16s. It just seems unlikely that he wouldn’t be at very least the understudy to Dostal, and if you were to take the “ride the hot hand” approach to starts, then Vladar’s track record this year could very well be good enough to make it undeniable.
The Flyers’ starter has looked like a confident, relaxed goaltender through nearly two months of action, and even if his play was to take a dip heading into the new year, it seems as if his pedigree and recent play will be enough to give him a chance to backstop his country to an olympic medal.
