As we’ve reached the holiday break, the Philadelphia Flyers are currently 19-10-7 through their first 36 games, which is good for 2nd in Metropolitan Division, 3rd in the Eastern Conference, and 6th in the NHL. Yes, 6th.
Head coach Rick Tocchet is in the first year of his tenure and while the Flyers have played some inspiring hockey, he has received quite a bit of flack, primarily for his handling of sophomore forward Matvei Michkov.
The Russian superstar-in-the-making has had a bumpy season to say the least with just 20 points through 36 games. At this point last year, Michkov had 11 goals and 27 points (in 34 games played) but the Flyers were 16-16-4.
This year his usage has been mind-boggling at times, infuriating at best, and sometimes just doesn’t make sense, especially when he doesn’t see any 3-on-3 overtime minutes. Michkov’s skillset is best suited for overtime, as evidenced by his many overtime winners last year, but Tocchet refuses to put him out there.
Michkov didn’t do himself any favours either at the start of the season when his defensive play left a lot to be desired. He had been caught cherry picking several times and sometimes it looked like he wasn’t putting in 100% effort. Michkov has looked a lot better recently, intimating that his early season struggles could have been because he entered training camp with an injury and it had affected his foot speed.
He has only seen 16+ minutes of ice-time on 4 separate occasions, and in only one of those instances did he clear the 17 minute-mark. Michkov has also scored 2 goals and 3 points in those 4 games, meaning he was doing something right to earn a bit more ice-time.
Additionally, his 14:41 ATOI lags behind 8 different forwards and is only ahead of Carl Grundström (13:01), Nikita Grebenkin (10:30), Garnet Hathaway (10:14), Rodrigo Ābols (10:21), and Nicolas Deslauriers (8:10).
He’s done a much better job this season as he holds an even rating compared to his -18 from last year, but he is taking a lot of penalties, which would drive any head coach off his rocker, as he leads the team with 34 PIM.
Nevertheless, Michkov has improved over the last little bit with 14 points in his last 23 games, but at some point, Tocchet is going to have to unleash his best offensive talent. Playing only 10:52 last game against Chicago with a short bench after Denver Barkey didn’t return in the third period is unacceptable.
However, the fact that the Flyers are doing this well without the help of Michkov speaks volumes to how the rest of the players are doing and undertaking the new system. We can only wonder how much better they would be with their talented winger chipping in a lot more consistently.
However, that means Tocchet has to give him more ice time, play him with more offensive-minded players, trust him enough to make mistakes, and reconfigure the god-awful power play units that have focused on balance instead of firepower.
Other than Michkov’s deployment, another area of concern regarding Tocchet is his similar stance with Grebenkin – and even at the start of the season with Emil Andrae. The Russian power forward was acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs last year and impressed enough to make the team out of camp, unfortunately that didn’t translate to a lot of game action until Tyson Foerster’s injury.
With Grebenkin, the frustrating aspect was that Tocchet would say one thing, but then do something completely different. He’d speak to the media about needing to get him more ice time and how it’s his job as head coach to make sure it happens, but then when the game started, Grebenkin was seeing very few minutes.
At the very least, his usage of Grebenkin has changed, albeit because he had to adjust due to a key injury, but it’s only a matter of time until we see the 22-year-old on the scoresheet more often while earning more of Tocchet’s trust – as he might have done against Vancouver on Monday.
Andrae was in the same boat during his first stint with the team when he was seeing very limited ice time compared to some of his counterparts. At least when it comes to the Swedish defenseman, the tune has changed, and Andrae has proven his value on a consistent basis, which has allowed him to staple his name in the top-4 on a permanent basis.
Outside of the prospects, Tocchet has pushed a lot of buttons on his way to 19-10-7 season, but he’s received help in areas the Flyers aren’t generally used to, like goaltending.
Dan Vladař has been the biggest storyline for the Flyers as he has given the team a reliable netminder in between the pipes on a nightly basis. They have finally received some stable goaltending from Samuel Ersson as well, but Vladař has held the fort on a consistent basis, and is doing so against some of the league’s best.
Additionally, he’s seen a great turnaround from Christian Dvorak, who is 3rd on the team with 24 points, Trevor Zegras, who has become the team’s most potent weapon with 15 goals and 37 points, and decent efforts from Owen Tippett and Sean Couturier, who have 22 and 20 points, respectively.
The Flyers won’t “wow” you on a nightly basis but they get the job done. Sometimes it can be a boring brand of hockey, other times it doesn’t make sense how they’re doing what they’re doing with such little offensive zone time, shots, or dangerous chances, but Tocchet is finding a way to get the best out of his players.
The Flyers took the Vegas Golden Knights to overtime and lost because of a miscue from Travis Konecny in his own zone. The 27-2-7 Colorado Avalanche barely hung on to a 3-2 win over the Flyers. The Flyers took the Carolina Hurricanes to overtime or a shootout three times. They’re 2-1-0 against the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, and lost in overtime to the Edmonton Oilers.
They’ve really only played a few bad games, which included losses to Winnipeg, Toronto, Dallas, Tampa Bay, and the Pittsburgh Penguins the second time around when they looked a lot mightier. It’s a different feeling compared to years prior, but for once, there’s a level of confidence that we have that when they take the ice, they actually have a chance to win games against “superior” opponents.
That level of hope has alluded us for years and it’s slowly returning within the confines of the Xfinity Mobile Arena. While Tocchet’s tactics aren’t overly popular, at the very least, we are seeing winning hockey in Philadelphia and that has to feel (a little) good.
