Flyers' Dan Vladar discusses giving up brutal goal in loss to Penguins

The Philadelphia Flyers grabbed momentum in the second period of Game 5 of their first-round Stanley Cup Playoffs series versus the rival Pittsburgh Penguins when Philadelphia scored a pair of goals to erase what was a 2-0 deficit. 

However, the contest changed when Pittsburgh's Kris Letang lobbed a puck toward the opposing net with less than three minutes remaining in the period. Flyers goalie Dan Vladar misplayed the errant attempt and then couldn't find the puck before it slid between his pads for what became the game-winning goal. Following the 3-2 defeat, Vladar addressed what went wrong for the visitors at that moment.

Dan Vladar has no answer for brutal error in loss to Penguins

"I don’t know what to answer," Vladar admitted, per Josh Yohe and Kevin Kurz of The Athletic. "It’s an unfortunate bounce, to be honest with you. You can always do something better on every single goal, doesn’t matter if it’s a bounce off the boards or a (two-on-zero) breakaway. You can always do something a little bit better. Just got that bounce that we didn’t. They were the happier team today."

As Yohe noted in a different piece, the Penguins are now halfway to possibly becoming the fifth team in NHL history to come back from 3-0 down in a series. Letang seems to understand that sometimes a team simply needs to be more lucky than good while attempting to accomplish something that seemed unthinkable not all that long ago. 

"Especially after all the looks I got in the second, I can't believe that one goes in," Letang said about the goal, according to Michelle Crechiolo of the Penguins' website. "But I just tried to put it there. Obviously, made a crazy bounce. Sometimes, you create your own luck."