By Dan Silver (@dsilver88)
Hope
It’s a powerful word, maybe one of the most powerful in the English language.
If there is nothing to look forward to, nothing to have hopes for, going through life’s daily grind becomes a lot more difficult.
For Philadelphia Flyers fans, hope has been very hard to come by for the past many years.
It’s been 48 years since the team brought a Stanley Cup back to Broad Street, and 13 years since they made the finals.
Perhaps of more significance, insofar as hope is concerned, is that recent times have been particularly bleak.
The Flyers have missed the playoffs four of the past five seasons, and have one playoff series victory in the past 11 seasons.
What makes it worse is that despite the futility, they haven’t been quite bad enough to finish in the bottom three of the league and have a legitimate chance to add elite talent through the draft. And the one year (2017) they got lucky and jumped from 13th to 2nd (2.2% chance), they ended up drafting a player (Nolan Patrick) who they traded a few years later and who looks like a complete bust.
Heading into the 2023 NHL Draft, Flyers fans had been told by new General Manager Daniel Briere that the team was entering a rebuilding phase, which in the modern NHL, with a strict salary cap, can take a long time to accomplish, and might not be successful at all.
Despite optimism about Briere and new President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones, there was fan frustration that former GM Chuck Fletcher’s short-term moves to improve the team left the organization relatively bereft of draft capital and didn’t give us a legit shot at a top three pick in this year’s draft, with potentially generational talent available.
The bottom line was that hope was running low among the Flyers fan base.
Then, on Wednesday, June 28, after an advantageous and well-orchestrated sequence of events, the Flyers restored hope to their fans when Daniel Briere stepped to the podium and said:
“With the 7th selection of the draft, Flyers are proud to select, from St. Petersburg of the KHL, Matvei Michkov.”
Click here for a full link to the full pick video if you are so inclined
So now let’s talk about why the selection of Michkov should restore hope for Flyers fans.
Simply put, he has the potential to be a generational talent, like Evgeny Malkin, or Sidney Crosby, or Connor McDavid, or Eric Lindros – his style is unlike any of those players, but it’s theoretically possible that he could impact the NHL in a similar fashion.
Two years ago, at the 2021 World Junior Championships for players under the age of 18, Michkov, at the age of 16, scored 12 goals and added four assists in seven games to lead the entire tournament with 16 points, two more than Connor Bedard.
Yes, the same Bedard who went 1st overall in this year’s draft to the Blackhawks and is generally thought of as the surest thing to become the NHL’s next superstar.
After that tournament, the hockey world shook with excitement at the prospect of two generational players being available in the 2023 NHL Draft.
So what happened that Bedard went 1st but Michkov ended up slipping to 7th?
The first thing that happened was that when Russia invaded Ukraine, they stopped being invited to international hockey competitions.
So while Bedard was dazzling scouts at the 2022 and 2023 World Junior Championships and cementing his status as a generational talent, Michkov was back home in Russia, unable to showcase his growth on the international stage.
However, what Michkov was doing back in Russia was quite impressive.
This past season, Michkov scored nine goals and added 11 assists for 20 points in 30 games in the KHL, Russian’s top professional league, and generally considered the 2nd best league in the world, behind the NHL.
For comparison, here are how some other Russians who went on to huge NHL success fared in the KHL as 18yo’s:
Matvei Michkov – 30 games, 9 goals, 11 assists, 0.67 PPG
Alex Ovechkin – 53 games, 13 goals, 11 assists, 0.45 PPG
Evgeni Malkin – 34 games, 3 goals, 9 assists, 0.35 PPG
Nikita Kucherov – 9 games, 0 goals, 2 assists, 0.22 PPG
Kirill Kaprizov – 31 games, 4 goals, 4 assists, 0.26 PPG
Artemi Panarin – 5 gmes, 0 goals, 1 assists, 0.20 PPG
You’re not reading that wrong. At the same age in the same league, Michkov greatly outperformed some of the best NHL players in the history of the game.
His offensive potential is undeniable.
Now seems like a good time to pause with the story of why he lasted until the 7th pick and take a look at what makes him such an incredible talent.
He’s been described as an offensive super computer. I’m not sure in all my years of viewing video of young players I have ever seen a player who excels at scoring goals in so many different ways.
The word I keep coming back to with him is “quick.” He does everything so insanely quickly on the ice.
Here he is moving from the boards to a shooting position in nano-seconds and rifling the puck past the goalie
Michkov’s shot accuracy and velocity is also incredible
And look at how quickly he gets the puck to the net after it touches his stick in the offensive zone
His one-timer has devastating speed and accuracy
Unsurprisingly, he’s incredible on breakaways
I think he’s also scored more lacrosse-style goals than anyone, also known as the Michigan, where he lifts the puck from behind the net and puts it in the top corner
He’s also working on a Michigan where he fires the puck into the far corner
Lest you think Michkov can only scored goals, he’s also an elite stickhandler and playmaker, as illustrated in this clip
If you want more, click here for an eight-minute video of Michkov scoring goals!
OK, now that we’ve shown you why Michkov is so special, let’s get back to why he dropped to the 7th pick in the recent draft.
In addition to the fact that he hasn’t been able to play on the international stage, he is also signed for three more seasons in the KHL with SKA St. Petersburg. In the past, it was possible for NHL teams to buy out KHL contracts, but technically it’s not possible any longer, so the likelihood is that Michkov will be playing in Russia for at least three more seasons.
In and of itself, that’s not a huge deal, but without the opportunity to meet with Michkov and discover his intentions, NHL teams were left to wonder whether or not he would actually come over after the conclusion of his contract or if possibly he would decide to stay in Russia.
Deciding to take a player with a high pick in the very deep 2023 draft, and then having said player never come to the NHL, is a risk that many teams would not be willing to take.
There was an air of mystery surrounding Michkov, which is why I also had some questions about whether or not I wanted the Flyers to draft him.
It felt like we knew nothing about the player.
However, a few days before the draft, when people were assuming Michkov would prefer to play for the Capitals (8th pick in draft) due to the Ovechkin factor, I theorized that maybe it was possible that Michkov would want to carve his own path and build a legacy for another big market franchise.
This is where Briere came in with some stealth activity that only surfaced after the selection had been made.
Apparently, on Friday, June 23, Briere brought in Michkov and his family for a secret meeting at the Flyers Skate Zone Training Facility in Voorhees, New Jersey.
And that meeting went extremely well, to the point where the Flyers shot to the top of the list of teams that Michkov wanted to play for.
I mean, who doesn’t love a little air hockey!
It sounds like Briere and Jones really wowed Michkov and his family, but the Flyers GM wanted to make sure that the rest of the staff felt comfortable with the player. So early the week of the draft, they set up another meeting in Nashville where a bigger group of Flyers executives and scouts had a chance to meet Michkov. And apparently that also went really well.
So at this point, it became pretty clear internally that Michkov was their guy.
Now the question became would he last to them at #7.
With of all the uncertainty and mystery surrounding Michkov, because of their secret meeting with him, the Flyers had a huge leg up on the teams picking in front of them who likely wouldn’t feel as comfortable taking such a huge risk.
Here’s my understanding of how most insiders thought the six picks before the Flyers were going to occur:
1 – Hawks – Bedard
2 – Ducks – Likely Fantilli, if not, probably Carlsson
3 – Blue Jackets – One of the big centers – Fantilli, Carlsson, or Smith
4 – Sharks – concern about taking Michkov was here, but most thought they’d take the remaining center
5 – Habs – rumors they wanted Leonard or Reinbacher, some concerns they might trade the pick to a team that wanted Michkov
6 – Coyotes – wild card, but it sure sounds like they had concerns regarding Michkov’s desire to play for them
The Flyers reportedly looked into trading up to #5 to guarantee they could take Michkov, but the price was too high. There were also rumors that Nashville was desperately trying to trade up to #5 to get Michkov, but again, the price was too high.
Fortuitously, the Habs decided on Reinbacher, the big defenseman, at #5, the Coyotes took a shot on a big Russian defenseman, Simashev, at #6, and the Flyers got their guy at #7.
I was absolutely jubilant when the Flyers took Michkov, there will likely never be another opportunity to take a generational player so far down in the draft.
But what honestly made it even more exciting was seeing how excited Michkov was to be drafted by the Flyers.
Click here to watch his entire meeting with the media after the pick.
Briere could barely contain his excitement!
For a player with so much mystery over the past many years, to see Michkov and hear him proclaim that his dream is to play for the Philadelphia Flyers and win a Stanley Cup, it just doesn’t get much better than that.
It was also very emotional to watch him tear up in the media interview session when asked about his father, who died a month before the draft. Michkov said that his father’s dream was for his son to win a Stanley Cup.
Regardless of who they chose in the draft, the Flyers were going to struggle to win games in the next few seasons.
However, the losing is going to be much more palatable knowing that there is a potential generational superstar likely coming in three years who wants to bring the Stanley Cup back to Philadelphia.
Matvei Michkov has restored hope to Flyers fans.
Philly is Flyer 
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