The Calgary Flames entered the 2024-25 season with a couple question marks in net, which basically boiled down to one big question: could Dan Vladar or Dustin Wolf grab hold of the starting job in the wake of Jacob Markstrom’s departure.

82 games later, Wolf is the Flames’ undisputed starter. But that doesn’t mean that Vladar’s season was a wash or that he didn’t make much progress towards solidifying a specific role in the NHL. It’s just that the role he may be ideally suited for at this point might not be the one he had his heart set on.

Let’s take a look at Vladar’s season.

Way, way back during the 2021 off-season, the Flames acquired Vladar from the Boston Bruins for a third-round pick. At the time, the Bruins had to decide whether to keep Vladar or Jeremy Swayman, as Vladar was about to become eligible for waivers. The Bruins opted to keep Swayman, and the Flames got Vladar, a goalie they really liked, for a fairly low acquisition cost.

Vladar was tapped as the backup behind established starter Jacob Markstrom. For the most part, Vladar played the role well. He didn’t play a ton – Markstrom gonna Markstrom – but when he got in, he played capably. He saw his numbers dip a little bit after a strong start with the Flames, which was eventually revealed in 2024 to be because of a nagging hip injury that required surgery to clean up his hip socket.

A few months after Vladar’s surgery, the Flames traded Markstrom to New Jersey, essentially opening the door for Vladar or rookie Dustin Wolf to claim the starting job. Expectations for 2024-25 were that Vladar would play more than in prior seasons, but how much more would depend on both Vladar’s performance and Wolf’s.

I don’t mean to use this term disparagingly, but the Flames used Vladar like a pair of training wheels in 2024-25. By that I mean this: of the two goalies the Flames had, Vladar was the one they had seen play against some of the NHL’s best teams and perform well. As a result, in order to avoid throwing Wolf to, well, the wolves, they threw Vladar to them instead because they had seen him survive (and occasionally thrive) in those types of situations.

In October, November and December, Vladar got the tougher assignments, particularly playing the second half of back-to-back sets or getting the scarier-looking teams in homestands or on road trips. He played pretty well over his 18 starts during that stretch, and that allowed Wolf to build his game and find his swagger.

Once the calendar flipped to 2025, Vladar was flat-out used as the backup. Wolf started 34 games to Vladar’s 11. In both halves of the calendar, Vladar’s usage seemed built around maximizing Wolf’s effectiveness. In the first half, it was the types of games that Vladar played. In the second half, it was frequency. The most consistently Vladar played was three games during a six game eastern road trip that led up to the trade deadline, and then another two games during a four game eastern swing through Toronto and the New York City area.

If the goal for this season was Vladar becoming an NHL starter, that didn’t happen, and his body of work this season didn’t really make a great argument that he could thrive in that role. (He still might grow into it; goalies mature at difference paces than other positions.) However, Vladar ended up being a really good backup at times, especially in the later stages of the season. As a playoff spot seemed within reach, the Flames ended up playing Wolf in every important game and used Vladar to spell him off, but their standings situation still relied upon Vladar winning when he played. He did so, and the Flames’ players seemed to have just as much confidence in front of Vladar as they did Wolf.

Not to belabour the point, but the discovery from 2024-25 may be that Vladar could be the ideal backup to Wolf at this point in both of their careers. If Vladar wants to be.

Vladar is slated to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1. If Vladar doesn’t mind being Wolf’s understudy, I suspect the Flames would have a ton of interest in bringing him back for that role – especially given Devin Cooley’s struggles down the stretch with the Wranglers this season. But it all depends on what Vladar wants to do with his career.

Vladar has played 100 games for the Flames since arriving in 2021. He’s worked hard and deserves the chance to explore his options. We’ll see if he ends up back playing for the red team in the fall.