While the Philadelphia Flyers earned their first victory of the season on Monday night over the Florida Panthers, it was hard not to notice that forward Matvei Michkov played sparingly and was even benched in the third period in what amounted to be a close game.
This comes off the heels of Michkov having played 14:54 in the season opener last Thursday and then just 13:27 against Carolina on Saturday. Head coach Rick Tocchet has been on record stating that he wants to see more from the sophomore, which must not have occurred on Monday when Nikita Grebenkin took his spot alongside Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny in the third period.
It was reported, however, that Michkov dealt with an ankle injury during the summer, which would explain why he looks like he lost some foot speed. That could be concerning considering that’s not an elite aspect of his game.
What’s also interesting is that it wasn’t mentioned once during the summer, when training camp opened, or even heading into the new season. The Flyers tend to hold injury news close to their chest and don’t reveal anything unless they absolutely have to or if surgery has already been completed – like we’ve seen over the years with Rasmus Ristolainen.
However, mixed in with his lack of ice-time is the latest talk of the town, which comes from a conversation picked out of the ‘Spittin’ Chiclets’ podcast. Long-story short, co-hosts Paul Bissonnette and Ryan Whitney said that they’ve heard from some of their sources that the Russian winger entered training camp overweight and out of shape.
This isn’t the first time that his name has been slandered in his very young professional career. During his draft season, the talk surrounded how he wasn’t a good teammate, didn’t have a good attitude, and there was also concern he might not want to play in North America.
Add in the fact that the KHL had far less scouting due to the geopolitical climate at the time, it scared off a lot of teams, which allowed the Flyers to scoop him up with the 7th overall pick, over the likes of Montréal and Arizona.
It’s safe to say those rumours won’t be going anywhere with how the media has lambasted the youngster. Nevertheless, he came through with flying colours in his rookie season and one can assume he’s going through the growing pains of an early season slump as sophomore seasons generally start off slower, or he’s trying to get over an ankle injury.
As for the present day, Michkov has to showcase more effort in his overall game to get back into Tocchet’s grace. The veteran bench boss has not been shy in benching or limiting ice-time for his star players, as we saw similar instances in Vancouver with Elias Pettersson.
If he felt Pettersson wasn’t moving his feet or wasn’t showcasing enough effort, he didn’t hesitate in giving players like Jake DeBrusk, Conor Garland, Dakota Joshua or Kiefer Sherwood more ice-time.
That directly correlates to Michkov being left off the ice in Saturday’s 3-on-3 overtime session, despite that being where someone of his skillset would shine the most. Instead, Tocchet favoured Bobby Brink and Noah Cates, while also giving shifts to Couturier, Christian Dvorak, Tyson Foerster, and Trevor Zegras.
When asked about Michkov’s omission, Tocchet kept it short and sweet, and it actually almost worked in his favour had Brink’s overtime winner not been waived off for goaltender interference.
“I just wanted the guys who I thought were skating.”
Considering Michkov rode the pine for most of the third period, clearly whatever Tocchet was looking for wasn’t entirely met, even though he drew some positives.
While his 14:56 TOI was a season-high, it was the second lowest ice-time out of the Flyers’ top-9, ahead of just Owen Tippett (14:52), which means he has a lot of work to do ahead of their next game on Thursday night against Winnipeg.
It will be interesting to see how he bounces back ahead of that game and if the ice-time hierarchy changes at all. Until now, players like Brink, Cates, Couturier, Dvorak, and Foerster have stood out, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise as to why their ice-time hasn’t wavered.
On the bright side, Tocchet doesn’t believe in scratching players to get a reset or to set a spark. He was encouraged by Michkov’s game but wants him to gut it out and fight through the adversity, acknowledging that getting over an ankle injury is tough, especially since it stunted his training.
With 79 games remaining, there’s a lot of season left to play, and it’s only a matter of time before the Russian winger gets back to his scoring ways. However, until then he needs to do a better job at pushing himself on a per shift basis and show his new coaching staff that he deserves to play 18-20 minutes a night.
