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Flyers

Bubble Wrap the Flyers and Put Them in a Hyperbaric Chamber Until the Regular Season Begins

Matt Schultz

By Matt Schultz

Published:

Sep 22, 2026; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar (80) is checked by a member of the training staff during the first period against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden.
Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images

The Flyers have played two preseason games and have had a player go down with an injury in each of them. It’s not good.

On Tuesday night it was Dan Vladar, who was recently named a Top 10 goalie in the the league by the NHL Network, and whom the Flyers inked to a five-year, $27.5 million contract extension in July. On a routine dump-in on net in the first period, Vladar fumbled the puck and left a rebound on the doorstep. As he reached out to swipe the puck to the corner, Tanner Jeannot crashed the net and made contact with Vladar’s right arm:

He left the game with what the Flyers officially called an upper-body injury, which, as is the NHL way, is irritatingly vague. From where I’m sitting, my non-expert guess is that it was a shoulder thing. Hurt his shoulder somehow.

But this internet doctor has me nervous it’s something worse:

This is not a good tweet from the doctor. Wish I never saw it. (Kinkead: hope this dude is talking out his ass)

Denver Barkey is the other Flyer who’s already banged up. In the first period of the team’s preseason opener on Monday night, Barkey was carrying the puck into the offensive zone and took an awkward hit into the boards from Martin Fehérváry. He left the game shortly after that with what the Flyers are calling a lower-body injury:

The good news there is that Rick Tocchet doesn’t seem to be particulaly worried about it:

Feels like the Flyers may have dodged a bullet there, but still, I think it’d be a perfectly fine and good plan to put the rest of the team in bubble wrap until the actual season starts. There are two more preseason games left. Let’s get through them without anyone else getting hurt.

Matt Schultz
Matt Schultz

Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com