Common supervisor (GM) Danny Briere of the Philadelphia Flyers said that he doesn’t view prospect Matvei Michkov because the savior of his group’s franchise. He may be telling the reality and maybe he plans to make a blockbuster deal sometime to land the 19-year-old a celebrity to play subsequent to. But when he’s mendacity? That’s considerably justified.
Michkov’s presence provides the Flyers leeway to experiment and make errors. With the potential to hold a franchise to the promised land if he will get just a bit little bit of assist, he’s the last word supply of optimism. Whether or not or not Briere makes a high-risk splash to assist him isn’t all that essential—he won’t want it.
Michkov’s Limitless Upside
Simply to get it out of the way in which, we are inclined to understand “bust” potential as a considerably greater chance than it truly is. For Russian prospects, it’s straightforward to pivot to Nail Yakupov (who performed virtually all of his video games in North America, anyway) and Nikita Filatov as examples of why gamers from that nation are dangerous. Nonetheless, neither of these two performed something like Michkov stylistically, are outliers, and objectively weren’t nearly as good as him, both.
Amongst NHL-drafted gamers with a minimum of 20 video games performed of their draft 12 months and the season following it within the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), Michkov is on an island by himself when it comes to point-per-game manufacturing—no one actually comes all that shut. Even when we use age-18 and age-19 seasons, he’s nonetheless on an island with Kirill Kaprizov and Evgeny Kuznetsov, who had their draft years excluded from the pattern measurement attributable to having a later birthday.
If we’re nonetheless going by age, which hurts Michkov, Pavel Buchnevich and Vladimir Tarasenko are on an island themselves however one comparatively distant from the three gamers simply talked about. Then, there’s everybody else who principally failed to attain greater than single-digit factors.
Seeing as 4 of the gamers simply talked about that aren’t Michkov had star-to-superstar peaks within the NHL, it could be a good wager to have the teen in that space. Nonetheless, factors in all probability don’t even do correct justice to Michkov. Likelihood is that you just’re a top-end participant for those who’re capable of rating as effortlessly as him in an expert league, however they don’t communicate to his expertise. In actuality, solely his on-ice play can do this.
Michkov is a participant who, regardless of being a youngster, is all the time one step forward of his opposition. He’s misleading and tactically good. He has the persistence to attend for the fitting play to open up when he has the puck and in addition has the smarts to create that proper play for his teammates when he’s off the puck. Showcasing this within the KHL is one factor, however doing it with a lowly HK Sochi membership while lacking time attributable to illness is one other. He has dynamic expertise on high of this uncanny capacity to course of the sport—he’s a generational prospect by this description.
Many individuals have urged that Michkov’s fashion gained’t mesh with head coach John Tortorella (even when that’s objectively false), and a few have talked about his angle being a difficulty (one thing that’s more likely to be irrelevant even when it had been hypothetically true). Irrespective of how usually hockey media tries to carry the 19-year-old down, don’t let the adverse rhetoric idiot you—he has flaws, however he’s particular.
It could be considerably trivial to mission what number of objectives and factors he would possibly rating at his peak, however he might be a one-of-a-kind expertise. There are solely a handful of top-end gamers whose standout capacity is their IQ—Michkov may be one in every of them. He has the upside to do the heavy lifting for a franchise all by himself, which is the place the extra essential theme of this put up comes from.
The Flyers Are Already in a Good Place
It’s important that we word the Flyers don’t have the best observe document with these things. They failed Eric Lindros and Claude Giroux, their final two celebrity skills. If Michkov lives as much as the hype—which odds say he’ll—then Philadelphia can’t be grossly incompetent. However don’t fret, as a result of it looks like they’ve a rational plan.
In contrast to what occurred with Lindros, there aren’t main well being issues due to his fashion. In contrast to what occurred with Giroux, the roster building is already considerably improved.
That second half is essential to get into. What plagued the Flyers groups with Giroux is that there have been persistently three or 4 gamers who had great seasons whereas the remaining had been considerably underwhelming or respectable liabilities. The poor depth and the dearth of something resembling a reliable protection made it so a 102-point season from the celebrity, for instance, was solely sufficient to clinch the playoffs on the final day of the season in 2017-18—it was a nightmare.
However that period appears to be up to now. The Flyers are giving Michkov a strong group of prospects, a plethora of draft picks, and several other younger roster gamers with top-line upside—Giroux didn’t have this when the group began constructing round him. Philadelphia didn’t begin including high prospects till he was round 27 years outdated, and even then they didn’t all dwell as much as the hype. Moreover, there have been fewer gamers with top-line upside who may encourage year-to-year progress.
Associated: How the Flyers’ Prime Gamers Developed as Prospects
With good depth on the wings each now and sooner or later together with Owen Tippett, Tyson Foerster, Travis Konecny, Joel Farabee, Denver Barkey, Bobby Brink, Samu Tuomaala, Alex Bump, Alex Ciernik, and extra, there’s a gifted core right here. The goaltending is immensely robust, and kids Cam York, Jamie Drysdale, and Oliver Bonk might be a wonderful group of three defensemen sometime. There’s an absence of facilities with solely Jett Luchanko being an enormous identify and Jack Berglund having a bottom-six upside, however Michkov’s youth provides the Flyers time to make the right additions.
Giroux barely acquired to see any of the Flyers’ prospects attain their peaks when he was in Philadelphia—gamers like Farabee, Foerster, Konecny, Morgan Frost, and others had been all objectively at their finest after he left. However a lot of the prospects on immediately’s group are both the identical age as Michkov or youthful than him—the longer term draft picks encourage he’ll solely get higher groups with time. With this in thoughts, there’s sufficient time to encourage long-term hope.
Expertise Can Be Acquired with out Prime Draft Picks
The tip objective of enjoying NHL hockey is clearly to win the Stanley Cup. The groups that do that virtually all the time have a celebrity participant on their roster, and it’s solely actually attainable to get these athletes by utilizing high draft picks. The dream to land one other one is seemingly gone following the Flyers’ close to playoff berth in 2023-24 and Briere’s hesitation to promote roster gamers within the offseason, even when a rebuild implies he needs to be making extra trades. Barring a monumental collapse or extraordinary lottery luck, drafting a top-rated prospect is near zero.
Whereas it could actually be good to have a number of superstars, it’s not important to win the Stanley Cup. It’s completely a requirement to have a bunch of stars, although—that’s the place aggressiveness could are available in.
The Flyers have a number of years to draft and develop prospects so as to add to their core, which may give them the additional star expertise they want. Moreover, there needs to be a number of alternatives to commerce for stars or signal them in free company to rival the contenders across the league.
If Michkov lives as much as his potential and the Flyers can get just a few extra star gamers—which isn’t a tall ask in anyway—then the concept is that Philadelphia may contend for lengthy sufficient that some deep playoff runs are an inevitability. If any group is nice for lengthy sufficient, in some unspecified time in the future it simply turns into future that they win a Stanley Cup. It won’t be the trail that creates a dynasty, however it’s one that would end in glory. The Orange and Black lastly have their X-factor, and he could make this dream a actuality.
Michkov has numerous strain on him, and maybe greater than your common top-end prospect. However the Flyers are not at all in a nasty spot. It’s been 49 calendar years since they hoisted the Stanley Cup—there needs to be continued optimism that this may change.
