The Calgary Flames have been the Cinderella Story of the NHL this season. Initially expected to be a team mired in a rebuild, the Flames are second in the Pacific Division with a 12–7–3 record.
Through the season, the Flames have played their goalies in almost a perfect tandem. Dustin Wolf has started 12 games while Dan Vladar has played in 11. Wolf’s numbers are substantially better, but with minimal NHL experience before this season, the Flames clearly needed someone as a backup who could jump in if he struggled.
But Wolf is owning the net now and without a contract for next season, the writing is on the league for Vladar. He will be looking for a team that gives him a bigger role next season, while a number of teams are looking for help more immediately after their goalie tandems have either struggled or faced injuries.
Those calls are growing louder by the day, with multiple teams allegedly circling around Vladar. Here are some of the teams that may be interested.
Colorado Avalanche
It has not been a good year in the Mile High City. Between numerous injuries, poor play, and more, this has been an awful year for the Avalanche and their fanbase. While it’s hard to control the injury bug, the team has been hit with among the worst goaltending in the league. Justus Annunen and Alexandar Georgiev sit 36th and 37th respectively in save percentage of the 38 goalies who have played at least 10 games this season.
And it’s not like they are just getting poor defence. The team sits right near the bottom in terms of goals saved above expected, a metric which tracks how many saves a goalie should be making on average given how dangerous the chances against are.
In fact, Annunen has faced the fewest high danger chances of any goalie this season (minimum 10 games played) with 58 and still has an abysmal save percentage. Georgiev hasn’t been quite as lucky in chances faced with 89, good for 29th in the league, but has the worst high danger save percentage. Not great.
Colorado has been clear that they don’t think that they need a goalie, but the number suggest otherwise. They probably aren’t getting rid of Georgiev and his $3.4M cap hit, but Vladar would be a massive upgrade in the system. The team in Colorado could desperately use a capable goalie in net as they try to get their systems under control and Vladar would make a ton of sense for them from both a fit and a cap perspective.
Carolina Hurricanes
Unlike Colorado, Carolina’s challenges in net have been more injury-based than performance. The Canes have lots Frederik Andersen to knee surgery until at least February and Pyotr Kotchekov is currently in concussion protocol with no timeline for return. The latter has been decent for the team so far this season, but a 0.904 save percentage on a cup contender is not good enough to carry them through.
In their absence, 29-year-old Spencer Martin has been filling in. However, he’s barely an NHLer, having played 63 career NHL games. His 0.854 save percentage also doesn’t inspire much confidence for the very good Hurricanes side.
While the crunch is short to medium term, if this causes them to go on a losing run, it could impact their chances of making the playoffs or impact their seeding, which is not optimal for this team at all. Vladar would be a good stopgap for this team and could also be a fit longer term. With only Kotchekov locked up beyond this season, the Canes are going to be looking for a goalie to support next year and Vladar would be a good piece for the team.
Edmonton Oilers
As unlikely as a trade between division and provincial rivals is, the one team that could use Vladar perhaps most of all is the Edmonton Oilers. Stuart Skinner does not look like the goalie he was last season, and Calvin Pickard is at best a fine backup goalie.
The Oilers have had the worst goals saved above expected this season, with Skinner and Pickard consistently letting in goals that they should have had. This is a very worrying trend for a team with two superstars and a better defence than they have had in years past.
Similar to Colorado, Pickard has seen the fewest high danger shots against and has still allowed six goals against. Skinner has also been reasonably well protected and allowed 18 against. But the difference in Edmonton is the number of soft ones that their goalies have allowed. Skinner has allowed eight low danger shots to go in this season and a whopping 21 medium danger goals. The latter is the second most in the league behind just Mackenzie Blackwood of the San Jose Sharks.
It’s hard to imagine Edmonton moving on from Skinner at this point in the season, but given how much they have been playing him of late, it seems like they have far less confidence in Pickard than they should as a backup. Looking for an addition to a tandem with Skinner seems to be the best path forward.
Given his pricetag and history, Vladar would be an excellent addition in Edmonton, but knowing the Flames, the Oilers will be paying a premium to acquire his services.
Does this even make sense for the Flames?
The Flames will want to give Wolf a little more of the net at some point to see if he can be an NHL starting goalie, and to do so, it would mean moving Vladar to being a backup. Naturally, the market for a backup netminder is going to be less than a goalie who can put up a 0.900+ save percentage on a 50/50 split. It makes sense to move Vladar while the iron is hot and while teams are in need of a netminder.
On top of that, the Flames have Devin Cooley putting up unreal numbers as the AHL’s top netminder. He could be a good backup for the Flames while they try to figure out if they are a playoff contender or pretender down the straight.
The challenge of course is that if the Flames move Vladar and Wolf is not ready, the odds of the team making the playoffs are small. They are likely to fall on their face in the standings. However for a team that was expected to be rebuilding this year, not making the playoffs shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
According to Frank Seravalli, the price to move Vladar is probably a second-round pick or equivalent. Given the Flames got the Czech netminder from Boston for a third round pick and that the Flames got Andrew Basha and Jacob Battaglia as second round selections this past draft, the Flames would likely take that pick and run with it.
Unfortunately, with how tight most teams are to the cap, they will probably need to take salary back to make a deal work, and that would almost certainly be another goalie. This is reasonable for the team if they see upside in that netminder in the long term or if the term is minimal on the deal.
Given the state of so many teams around the league, the Flames will likely be able to get a good return for Vladar, and if that remains true, now would be a great time to move on from him.
