Former NHL goalie Roman Čechmánek has died, the Philadelphia Flyers have announced.
“The Philadelphia Flyers are extremely saddened to hear of the passing of former goaltender Roman Čechmánek,” the team said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this difficult time.”
The 52-year-old played in 212 NHL games, mostly with the Philadelphia Flyers and then later with the Los Angeles Kings, posting a career 2.08 goals-against average and a .919 save percentage. Čechmánek was drafted at age 29 by the Flyers in the sixth round in 2000 and played that season in Philadelphia, where he went 35-15-6. That was good enough to earn an All-Star Game nod and see him finish as a runner-up for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender.
The Flyers eventually traded Čechmánek to the Kings, largely due to a 9-14 playoff record that overshadowed his regular-season stats (92-43-22). He spent one season in L.A. before returning to Europe.
Internationally, Čechmánek won a world junior bronze in 1991, to go with a pair of golds and a bronze at the world hockey championships (1999, 2000, and 1997 respectively). He was also the backup to Dominik Hašek on the Czech Republic’s gold-medal winning team at the 1998 Negano Olympics.
No details of how Čechmánek passed away have been released.