The Philadelphia Flyers are two games into their four-game exhibition season, and already they’re dealing with some ailments. After forward Denver Barkey was listed as day-to-day following Monday’s game against Washington, Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar left Tuesday’s game against the host Bruins with an apparent injury.

Although it’s too early to tell what happened, Vladar had been busy in the opening minutes of the first period, including making a nice save on NIkita Zadorov. However, less than a minute later, following Boston’s opening goal, something happened to Vladar. Seconds prior to the goal being scored, Vladar tried to control a soft rebound but didn’t quite grab it. An onrushing Tanner Jeannot tried to bang in the rebound, but Vladar sprawled to make the save. However, another angle showed Jeannot running into and hitting Vladar’s arm, the same arm he seemed to hyperextended in the playoffs against Pittsburgh. He didn’t miss any time during the playoffs, but it seemed to be an injury that wasn’t great on first glance.

Vladar lost his stick on the play as the Flyers tried to clear, but remained on the ice, tracking the puck and sliding to the opposite post. Michael Eyssimont’s shot beat Vladar, who immediately then went to bend down, trying to either stretch something out or determining what might be wrong. Standing and bent over, Vladar went to the bench to talk to the Flyers training staff. Seconds later he was headed down the hallway with Aleksei Kolosov tossed in to finish the rest of the game. There was no word if Vladar would return but it would be highly doubtful for the Flyers to risk worsening a potential injury to their starter.

A Vladar injury of any kind is huge

Obviously, without going overboard, any short-term injury to Vladar would put the Flyers at a big disadvantage. Vladar was the team’s most valuable player last season, and any success in 2026-27 would hinge largely on Vladar being healthy, and returning to some semblance of what he was in 2025-26. A long-term injury would definitely affect the club negatively. Outside of a trade to try to beef up the tandem, Philadelphia would be asking a lot of Joseph Woll to come in and take the reins for most of an 84-game schedule. A short-term injury would probably see Woll bumped up to the proverbial number one starter with either Kolosov or Carson Bjarnason as the backup.

Of course, with the injury not diagnosed yet, and the possible recovery time, it’s unclear what the status is of Dan Vladar. Suffice it to say, it would be very strange to see him at any point over the rest of the exhibition games, unless it was a small tweak and he was okay for one of the remaining two games. Even then, it’s not a risk worth taking.

Obviously, more information will be revealed possibly after tonight’s game in Boston as to the nature of the injury. But it’s not a good sign to see a key piece of the Flyers success leaving the game just 13 minutes and change into the exhibition season.

Update provided by Flyers

Shortly after this was published and as the Flyers were tied 1-1 with the Bruins in the second period, the team put out a brief update that Vladar will not be returning to the game.

While it may seem obvious since it looked like a pretty bad injury and this isn’t Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and Vladar doesn’t need to battle through any ailment to give the team the best chance to win — since, you know, it’s the preseason — it’s good to get official confirmation.

Now, we just wait on some official word from head coach Rick Tocchet either after the game or in the neat future.

The Flyers continue their preseason with the third of their four exhibition games hosting the Bruins back home in Philadelphia on Thursday.

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