Dan Vladar had a terrific night in Buffalo. Stop there and you'll miss what's actually happening to this team.
⚡ Upset:Flyers had a 30% chance before puck drop and beat Sabres 3–1.
24%
The Flyers beat the Sabres 3-1 on Wednesday, their third straight win after opening the season 2-6-3, and Vladar stopped 27 of 28 shots doing it. That's a gaudy number, and it fits a real trend: his save percentage has climbed to .900 after this game, up from .816 following the opener, and over his last three starts he's stopped 81 of 85 pucks. Philadelphia signed him to a five-year, $27.5 million extension over the summer, and nights like this one are why that deal doesn't look crazy anymore.
Hand Vladar the whole credit for a three-game turnaround, though, and you're ignoring who actually put the puck in the net and who set it up. Cole Knuble scored twice in just his second NHL game, with his father Mike Knuble, who spent a long career in this league, watching. That made Cole the first Flyers rookie to post a multigoal game in two or fewer career outings since Vinny Prospal back in 1996-97. Oliver Bonk, a defenseman still getting his first taste of the NHL this season, picked up the primary assist on both of Knuble's goals. Trevor Zegras scored on the power play. None of that is Vladar's doing.
RatingThen there's Matvei Michkov, whose ice time has been argued about since the day he arrived in Philadelphia. He's logged a modest workload through the first stretch of the season, well down the list among Flyers forwards, and still put together four goals and five points over his previous three games, including a game-winner. He logged a season-high stretch of ice time against Buffalo. If Rick Tocchet keeps giving him more minutes, that's the real roster story. A coach finally getting out of his best young player's way matters more than any one goalie's hot week.
One two-goal game in a second career start doesn't make a rookie the engine of a franchise. Scoring twice against a Sabres team that's played from behind more than almost anyone else in the league this season isn't the same as becoming a top-six fixture. Treat Knuble as a complementary piece until he proves otherwise.
Which is exactly why pinning this turnaround on Vladar is lazy. Vladar is a journeyman having a good month. Knuble, Bonk and Michkov are kids the Flyers actually drafted and developed, and all three were doing damage the same night the goalie was stealing headlines. A hot goalie explains why a team stops bleeding, but the goals are coming from somewhere else entirely.
Philadelphia sits at 9 points through 12 games, ahead of Pittsburgh's 7, though the Penguins have played three fewer games. The kids showed up again the same night Vladar had his best game of the season.
Vladar bought this team time to find out what Knuble, Bonk and Michkov actually are. Thank the kids for the turnaround. The goalie just kept it from falling apart while they figured it out.
