General manager (GM) Danny Briere of the Philadelphia Flyers stated that he does not view prospect Matvei Michkov as the savior of his team’s franchise. He might be telling the truth and perhaps he plans to make a blockbuster deal someday to land the 19-year-old a superstar to play next to. But if he’s lying? That’s somewhat justified.
Michkov’s presence gives the Flyers leeway to experiment and make mistakes. With the potential to carry a franchise to the promised land if he gets just a little bit of help, he is the ultimate source of optimism. Whether or not Briere makes a high-risk splash to help him isn’t all that important—he might not need it.
Amy Irvin / The Hockey Writers
Michkov’s Limitless Upside
Just to get it out of the way, we tend to perceive “bust” potential as a significantly higher possibility than it actually is. For Russian prospects, it’s easy to pivot to Nail Yakupov (who played almost all of his games in North America, anyway) and Nikita Filatov as examples of why players from that country are risky. However, neither of those two played anything like Michkov stylistically, are outliers, and objectively weren’t as good as him, either.
Among NHL-drafted players with at least 20 games played in their draft year and the season following it in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), Michkov is on an island by himself in terms of point-per-game production—nobody really comes all that close. Even if we use age-18 and age-19 seasons, he is still on an island with Kirill Kaprizov and Evgeny Kuznetsov, who had their draft years excluded from the sample size due to having a later birthday.
If we’re still going by age, which hurts Michkov, Pavel Buchnevich and Vladimir Tarasenko are on an island themselves but one relatively distant from the three players just mentioned. Then, there’s everyone else who mostly failed to score more than single-digit points.
Seeing as four of the players just mentioned that aren’t Michkov had star-to-superstar peaks in the NHL, it would be a fair bet to have the youngster in that area. However, points probably don’t even do proper justice to Michkov. Chances are that you’re a top-end player if you’re able to score as effortlessly as him in a professional league, but they don’t speak to his talent. In reality, only his on-ice play can do that.
Michkov is a player who, despite being a teenager, is always one step ahead of his opposition. He’s deceptive and tactically brilliant. He has the patience to wait for the right play to open up when he has the puck and also has the smarts to create that right play for his teammates when he is off the puck. Showcasing this in the KHL is one thing, but doing it with a lowly HK Sochi club whilst missing time due to sickness is another. He has dynamic talent on top of this uncanny ability to process the game—he is a generational prospect by this description.
Many people have suggested that Michkov’s style won’t mesh with head coach John Tortorella (even if that’s objectively false), and some have talked about his attitude being an issue (something that is likely to be irrelevant even if it were hypothetically true). No matter how often hockey media tries to bring the 19-year-old down, do not let the negative rhetoric fool you—he has flaws, but he is special.
It would be somewhat trivial to project how many goals and points he might score at his peak, but he could be a one-of-a-kind talent. There are only a handful of top-end players whose standout ability is their IQ—Michkov can be one of them. He has the upside to do the heavy lifting for a franchise all by himself, which is where the more important theme of this post comes from.
The Flyers Are Already in a Good Position
It’s essential that we note the Flyers don’t have the greatest track record with this stuff. They failed Eric Lindros and Claude Giroux, their last two superstar talents. If Michkov lives up to the hype—which odds say he will—then Philadelphia can’t be grossly incompetent. But do not fret, because it seems like they have a rational plan.
Unlike what happened with Lindros, there aren’t major health concerns because of his style. Unlike what happened with Giroux, the roster construction is already significantly improved.
That second part is important to get into. What plagued the Flyers teams with Giroux is that there were consistently three or four players who had tremendous seasons while the rest were somewhat underwhelming or legitimate liabilities. The poor depth and the lack of anything resembling a competent defense made it so a 102-point season from the superstar, for example, was only enough to clinch the playoffs on the last day of the season in 2017-18—it was a nightmare.
But that era seems to be in the past. The Flyers are giving Michkov a solid group of prospects, a plethora of draft picks, and several young roster players with top-line upside—Giroux did not have this when the team started building around him. Philadelphia didn’t start adding top prospects until he was around 27 years old, and even then they didn’t all live up to the hype. Additionally, there were fewer players with top-line upside who could inspire year-to-year growth.
With good depth on the wings both now and in the future including Owen Tippett, Tyson Foerster, Travis Konecny, Joel Farabee, Denver Barkey, Bobby Brink, Samu Tuomaala, Alex Bump, Alex Ciernik, and more, there’s a talented core here. The goaltending is immensely strong, and youngsters Cam York, Jamie Drysdale, and Oliver Bonk could be an excellent group of three defensemen someday. There’s a lack of centers with only Jett Luchanko being a big name and Jack Berglund having a bottom-six upside, but Michkov’s youth gives the Flyers time to make the proper additions.
Giroux barely got to see any of the Flyers’ prospects reach their peaks when he was in Philadelphia—players like Farabee, Foerster, Konecny, Morgan Frost, and others were all objectively at their best after he left. But most of the prospects on today’s team are either the same age as Michkov or younger than him—the future draft picks inspire he will only get better teams with time. With this in mind, there’s enough time to inspire long-term hope.
Talent Can Be Acquired without Top Draft Picks
The end goal of playing NHL hockey is obviously to win the Stanley Cup. The teams that do this almost always have a superstar player on their roster, and it’s only really possible to get these athletes by using top draft picks. The dream to land another one is seemingly gone following the Flyers’ near playoff berth in 2023-24 and Briere’s hesitation to sell roster players in the offseason, even if a rebuild implies he should be making more trades. Barring a monumental collapse or extraordinary lottery luck, drafting a top-rated prospect is close to zero.
While it would certainly be nice to have several superstars, it’s not essential to win the Stanley Cup. It’s absolutely a requirement to have a bunch of stars, though—that’s where aggressiveness may come in.
The Flyers have several years to draft and develop prospects to add to their core, which could give them the extra star talent they need. Furthermore, there should be several opportunities to trade for stars or sign them in free agency to rival the contenders around the league.
If Michkov lives up to his potential and the Flyers can get a few more star players—which isn’t a tall ask whatsoever—then the idea is that Philadelphia could contend for long enough that some deep playoff runs are an inevitability. If any team is good for long enough, at some point it just becomes destiny that they win a Stanley Cup. It might not be the path that creates a dynasty, but it is one that could result in glory. The Orange and Black finally have their X-factor, and he can make this dream a reality.
Michkov has a lot of pressure on him, and perhaps more than your average top-end prospect. But the Flyers are by no means in a bad spot. It’s been 49 calendar years since they hoisted the Stanley Cup—there should be continued optimism that this can change.
