Prospect Info: Round 1, 7th overall: Matvei Michkov, RW, SKA St. Petersburg (KHL)

[Flyerfan4life]

I’d bet real money that Lappy is the next HC once Torts does eventually step aside/fired.

He’s been developed, is beloved by the country club, and will be seen as a players coach after the reign of John. Experience with young players.

It’s happening 100%.

facts checkout..

why look outside the Org. when we can keep doing the samething forever

 

[BernieParent]

Serious question: at work, if your boss were an angry manipulative verbally-abusive jerk with zero self-awareness and self-accountability, would it make you a better employee? Or would you just want to get the f*** out of there? How would you feel about the culture?

I don't have any issue with tough but fair. Accountability is good, but you can have accountability while still giving people due respect, without resorting to mind games and public excoriation. Torts isn't tough but fair. He's just a complete asshole, and it's ultimately detrimental to the culture you're supposedly trying to build.

This ragingly stupid fake blue collar bullying as coaching shit needs to die a horrendous death. Like, it needs to fall down a well and drown to death, and then anvil needs to be dropped on it from above. Then the crushed remains needs to be hauled up in a basket, which is nailed to a f***ing cross, which is then set on fire, which is then put out by all of us pissing on it. And it can't come soon enough.

The add-on to this is that Tortorella never explained the reason for his "punishment". It's one thing to be harsh in order to drive home a lesson. But this is just empty power abuse.

 

[Guadana]

Oh, fans of flyers. How I envy you.
Greetings from a Devil fan.

I`m a big prospect developing fan. And I think I`m doing it good. I known in the draft day that Stuzle has great potential and should be drafted higher than 2. I was high on Mercer, higher on Quinn than Holtz. Predicted that Sanderson and Edvinsson are high pick players in their draft days. Gauithier and Leonard had good resume from me before the draft, I putted Gauthier in the top-5\6 way before draft. And Of course I didn`t regret about Mukhamadullin.
Because I watchin a lot of prospects games. I have a channel with Devils russian prospects. I`m making videos with good and bad actions of prospects.

https://www.youtube.com/@guadanahockey7299/videos

And I watched a lot of Michkov`s games. And I`m telling you I never saw a prospect with better IQ. He easily can make absolutelty different decisions that will make situation more danger. No one process the game like him. It`s a special player, who thinks about game, sleep and dream about the game. He is hockey freak,and absolutely most GM`s will regret about their decision in the draft day. He isn`t soft, he isn`t slow, his shot and passing is top. And he is living in the game.

Congratulation, guys. It`s luck. You won second OA pick. And it`s the best OA pick or one of the best in 21st century. You will build something around him. may be in 5 years. may be in 8 years, but it`s so easy now because you have Michkov. After year or two(or may be even before) some players will want to play with him. Ovechkin was the first piece and capitals built great tenure, even without cup, but they won it. Having the generational talent is only luck. This is a karmic gift for all the failures in the draft in particular and with the team as a whole.

 

[ProcessThis]

I’d bet real money that Lappy is the next HC once Torts does eventually step aside/fired.

He’s been developed, is beloved by the country club, and will be seen as a players coach after the reign of John. Experience with young players.

It’s happening 100%.

Yeah, that would be a very Flyers move.

Serious question: at work, if your boss were an angry manipulative verbally-abusive jerk with zero self-awareness and self-accountability, would it make you a better employee? Or would you just want to get the f*** out of there? How would you feel about the culture?

I don't have any issue with tough but fair. Accountability is good, but you can have accountability while still giving people due respect, without resorting to mind games and public excoriation. Torts isn't tough but fair. He's just a complete asshole, and it's ultimately detrimental to the culture you're supposedly trying to build.

This ragingly stupid fake blue collar bullying as coaching shit needs to die a horrendous death. Like, it needs to fall down a well and drown to death, and then anvil needs to be dropped on it from above. Then the crushed remains needs to be hauled up in a basket, which is nailed to a f***ing cross, which is then set on fire, which is then put out by all of us pissing on it. And it can't come soon enough.

Buddy, they're not working an accounting office together. It's professional sports. Competition at the highest level. If you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen. There's also plenty of former players that loved Tortorella.

 

[BernieParent]

Oh, fans of flyers. How I envy you.
Greetings from a Devil fan.

I`m a big prospect developing fan. And I think I`m doing it good. I known in the draft day that Stuzle has great potential and should be drafted higher than 2. I was high on Mercer, higher on Quinn than Holtz. Predicted that Sanderson and Edvinsson are high pick players in their draft days. Gauithier and Leonard had good resume from me before the draft, I putted Gauthier in the top-5\6 way before draft. And Of course I didn`t regret about Mukhamadullin.
Because I watchin a lot of prospects games. I have a channel with Devils russian prospects. I`m making videos with good and bad actions of prospects.

https://www.youtube.com/@guadanahockey7299/videos

And I watched a lot of Michkov`s games. And I`m telling you I never saw a prospect with better IQ. He easily can make absolutelty different decisions that will make situation more danger. No one process the game like him. It`s a special player, who thinks about game, sleep and dream about the game. He is hockey freak,and absolutely most GM`s will regret about their decision in the draft day. He isn`t soft, he isn`t slow, his shot and passing is top. And he is living in the game.

Congratulation, guys. It`s luck. You won second OA pick. And it`s the best OA pick or one of the best in 21st century. You will build something around him. may be in 5 years. may be in 8 years, but it`s so easy now because you have Michkov. After year or two(or may be even before) some players will want to play with him. Ovechkin was the first piece and capitals built great tenure, even without cup, but they won it. Having the generational talent is only luck. This is a karmic gift for all the failures in the draft in particular and with the team as a whole.

Спасибо.

 

[ProcessThis]

Sanheim got benched for spending too much time party planning is full tin foil, even for this board Talk about having long reach...

Lol how is that tin foil hat?

The dude had a good player relegated to the AHL for being more mature and professional than him.

A young, undersized defenseman getting more minutes and experience in the minors isn't the end of world.

 

[Appleyard]

My main point was that you cannot compare raw scoring between players that played 20 years ago. The whole landscape of European hockey has changed quite drastically since then, specifically the top league in Russia. No one is doubting Michkov's talent but this is starting to turn into the Derek Barnett broke Reggie White's sack record at Tennessee talking point.

Yeh... Michkov's year was unreally impressive... buuuut very hard to compare.

So many points that make it very hard:

1. It is a different league, though KHL is slightly stronger than RSL was.
2. BUT KHL is higher scoring than the RSL was... seriously... RSL was incredibly low scoring. Just have to look at the lock-out year and NHLers producing less in RSL than had in NHL to see that! (Elias for example... P/GP in NHL in 03-04, 1.18 P/GP in 05-06... 0.81 P/GP in KHL in 04-05)... 0.75 P/GP would put you top TEN in league scoring most years.
3. Ovechkin, Malkin were playing for 2 of the top ~3 teams of that era.
4. Ovechkin was actually THIRD on his team in scoring, he played 2nd line mainly...
5. Malkin was on the best team in the league. He played mostly bottom six.
6. Michkov played on one of the worst teams in the league and yeh... was best player... but on SKA would have been on 3rd line if given a proper shot.

 

[TCTC]

I think it's pretty hilarious how small he looks in this picture though

Ovi isn't short, but he's not a giant either.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Take this as a compliment, of all the high picks and highly ranked prospects in recent drafts, this was the guy I was shuddering might be picked by a Metro team.

I normally don't care who has the first pick, just as long as they are kept in the Metro. But even some of them, it's not too big of a deal. And as good as Bedard was, I think there's a limit with him that doesn't worry me too much. He'll be very good, but he doesn't worry me. The only guy since Dahlin that I really was hoping wouldn't be picked by a Metro team was Michkov, and that's because I think his potential is the best player in the world and a true generational player. I'm not guaranteeing that's what he becomes. He'll have to prove that out over the course of his career, but having followed him the last few years, I think he's probably the most fascinating hockey player to emerge in a while.

What is so fascinating about Michkov is that he just has an otherworldly ability to find the net. He knows when the goalie isn't well-positioned, he knows when the puck will deflect to a certain area, he knows when a defenseman is sleeping at the back door, he has an incredible sense of spacing of where he is, where the net is, where other players are. He also has a great release. It's very deceptive. He beats goalies clean without having scary shooting power, although his shooting power is also decent. And he obviously has unbelievable stick-skills too, and can score by undressing the whole defense and goalie. This guy just has a knack for scoring goals. It's not in the way that you see from Ovechkin blasting shots on the power play or Laine or Stamkos, or even Bedard. Bedard reminds me of a smaller Stamkos because of the shot. It's very heavy and powerful. He can score from distance. Michkov doesn't score his goals like that.

If you want to take a goal-scorer in the current NHL who his goal-scoring reminds me of the most, it's Matthews. Matthews is the best in the league at scoring goals within the vicinity of the net of the best 5 or 10 goalscorers within the NHL. He still can beat goalies clean from a little longer distance, and Michkov can too, but a disproportionate amount of his goal-scoring damage is near the net. And obviously there are plenty of differences. I'm not saying Michkov reminds me of Matthews, but the goal-scoring element is similar. You could also say there's some Kucherov with the overall hockey sense, playmaking, and stick-skills for a 5'10 winger that isn't blazing fast. There's probably no real great comparison out there for him. He's his own unique player.

Beyond the skillset, I can't get past that this guy always rises to the challenge. Any league you put him in, he breaks records. There are some athletes like that who you just know are destined for greatness because they keep setting the bar higher and higher, despite what challenge you might think is ahead of them. In terms of the last 3 or 4 years of his hockey career, Michkov has struggled no where. People tried to say last season that he wasn't good enough to get it done in the KHL. They used some of his SKA matches where he'd get like 2 or 3 shifts against him, and said that was proof. But that's just unrealistic. Can't expect a guy to score every game when they don't take a regular shift. When he was loaned to Sochi, he proved that he was still that dude. He set more records. He was as good as we thought he was.

And more specifically, his records are goal records. Putting the puck in the net is the most important skill in the game. Having a guy who is better than everyone else at that could result in a guy being the best player in the world. For many years, that's why Ovechkin was the best or second best player in the world, depending on how you viewed him compared to Crosby. So I obviously think there are differences between him and Ovechkin, but being that generational goal-scorer (even more so than like a Matthews) is what I think could be his ceiling. Michkov could be that guy that is pushing 60-70 goals per season. It might sound lofty, but he's been doing that everywhere else. He's been the most accomplished and overall best prospect to come from Russia since Ovechkin, why can't he be that guy? All he's shown us is that he is that guy. Maybe he'll fall short of that, but even if he does, he should still be a star. I'm struggling to see him be worse than Kucherov level.

As for the war, the character questions, the contract, stuff like that, I realize this is a part of the equation, but I think when you add it all up, the risk is worth it at #2 in the draft. #7? A joke that five other teams made such a mistake. With the contract, I think there's some real misconception with Russian players. People act like there's a real chance they'll never come to the NHL. I know you guys had that problem with Fedotov, so it's easy for your mind to go to what you experienced with your own team, but respectfully he's not one of the best Russians of his generation and the situations aren't remotely the same. The fact of the matter is that all the best Russian players since like the Cold War have played in the NHL, and in the last 10-15 years, all of them have come no later than their early/mid 20's.

It's a different era. Yeah, relations might not be good between Russia and USA/Canada, but the Russian players still know the possibility for them in the NHL. Michkov will absolutely come over to the NHL rather quickly. I assume it'll be right away when his contract is up. He'll probably be the best player in the KHL and ready for a bigger challenge, but even if he signs for like another two years (I don't think he will), he's likely stepping into the NHL as one of the best wingers in the game, so I think the wait is worth it, whenever he comes.

I think getting him on your team so soon isn't as important as most think. Regardless of whether jobs are on the line or not, the fact of the matter is that the majority of top 10 prospects, especially those not picked #1, are not better than middle of the lineup players before year 4 or 5. If you look back at the 2019 and 2020 drafts, which are the drafts 4 and 3 seasons removed, which is the crux of the window people discuss with Michkov, there are like 6 or so of the 2-10 drafted players in those two drafts that are more than middle of the lineup players by that point. The rest, for various reasons, aren't. They could get injured, they could bust, maybe the opportunity isn't there, maybe it's a combination of everything.

Draft picks are not sure-things. Many of them don't end up what the hope is on draft day, so I think getting a guy you can be pretty sure of what his hockey ability will become relative to pretty much any other draft-eligible prospect is more valuable than most people will admit. Sure, there's a chance you get the odd Zegras or Seider or Stuetzle that can contribute sooner, but really the majority of them aren't any better in year 3 than the average dude you sign off the street for 3 million in free agency that changes teams every few years.

As for his character, I think a lot of this has been blown way out of proportion. None of this even came up until the draft starting coming into focus. Funny how NHL affiliation for a player starts to bring out this tribalism. The hockey world didn't care enough to bring this stuff up when he was only some young Russian hockey prodigy with no connection to NA hockey. The only two things out there against him are one anonymous quote from a teammate that says he's "me, me, me" and then one scout that thought he had an attitude. Some people act like the character concerns are that he's some real criminal or something. If it's true that he's "me, me, me", is that really such a big deal? You guys have DeAngelo, so you know what a player with some character concerns is like. Evander Kane also has played in the NHL for a long time. The NHL certainly has a place for players with character concerns, and DeAngelo/Kane are good players. They aren't great players.

There are plenty of star athletes out there with a cocky attitude. If they produce, none of that stuff matters. But I wouldn't rule out that it's almost entirely overblown because people are trying to cover their tracks for Michkov being passed over by so many teams, and the general polarization about this player with many aspects like the war, his contract, and a general Russian factor. Russian players can sometimes get an unfair reputation, and sometimes it effects their draft stock.

As for the war, I'm not going to play colonel and forecast for you what might happen. That stuff can upend a lot in this world and transcends hockey. I'm not going to tell you it's impossible that Michkov is kidnapped or he's drafted into the Russian army or he's banned from the NHL for being Russian. I think those types of arguments people make are silly and far overdoing it, but look, it's a war. Hockey is secondary to all that happens with a war. I'm not going to say it's impossible there's some problem that makes it such that Michkov never plays in the NHL or his NHL career is upended. But my attitude with this stuff has always been that if this even starts to come close to being in real focus and isn't just a deranged conspiracy theory, this world has much bigger problems than will Michkov be able to play in the NHL. So I think you just take these elements out of it and just focus on the hockey. The hockey world isn't qualified to forecast what might happen in these areas, and it's best to just focus on picking the best players. I think the teams that considered this will pay for their mistake.

So in summary, I think this dude could be one of those historic players in hockey history. Maybe that sounds silly, but if he becomes that generational goal-scorer I think he could be, he will take your team to another level and really define a generation or two of Flyers hockey. If you look at the previous generation, the generational players won Cups with Crosby winning 3 and Ovechkin 1. I tend to think it's going to eventually happen with McDavid. If you look at the best players to never win one, they tend to be below the generational threshold. So if that's what Michkov is, and I know that's a big leap from where he's currently at, that's what you guys might be looking at with him leading your team the next 20 years. As a Rangers fan, I hate that this is what I expect my team to have to contend with over the next 20 years. I think Michkov will be a big problem for us. I think Michkov may just be that dude that keeps raising the bar and setting goal-scoring records in the NHL, like he's done everywhere else. Of course, I can't guarantee that. Plenty can happen. I wouldn't be worried about his hockey ability being good enough to at least be a star, but it's true that until he proves it, you can't be sure that's what he'll become.

I think you guys are going to be in for an exciting team over the coming years. That's always said about rebuilding teams. People compliment how they have so many picks and prospects. All that. A lot of the time it doesn't turn out that way because rebuilds are not easy and a lot that you forecast doesn't turn out happening. It's better to be good than a team you hope will be good. Hope doesn't always actualize, but I say entirely due to Michkov that I think he's just that dude. He will lead you guys to a lot of success.

 

[Young Sandwich]

I think it's pretty hilarious how small he looks in this picture though

View attachment 727525

Ovi isn't short, but he's not a giant either.

Ovi is a brick shithouse. He's like 6'2" and 230 lbs.

 

[Redpath]

Take this as a compliment, of all the high picks and highly ranked prospects in recent drafts, this was the guy I was shuddering might be picked by a Metro team.

I normally don't care who has the first pick, just as long as they are kept in the Metro. But even some of them, it's not too big of a deal. And as good as Bedard was, I think there's a limit with him that doesn't worry me too much. He'll be very good, but he doesn't worry me. The only guy since Dahlin that I really was hoping wouldn't be picked by a Metro team was Michkov, and that's because I think his potential is the best player in the world and a true generational player. I'm not guaranteeing that's what he becomes. He'll have to prove that out over the course of his career, but having followed him the last few years, I think he's probably the most fascinating hockey player to emerge in a while.

What is so fascinating about Michkov is that he just has an otherworldly ability to find the net. He knows when the goalie isn't well-positioned, he knows when the puck will deflect to a certain area, he knows when a defenseman is sleeping at the back door, he has an incredible sense of spacing of where he is, where the net is, where other players are. He also has a great release. It's very deceptive. He beats goalies clean without having scary shooting power, although his shooting power is also decent. And he obviously has unbelievable stick-skills too, and can score by undressing the whole defense and goalie. This guy just has a knack for scoring goals. It's not in the way that you see from Ovechkin blasting shots on the power play or Laine or Stamkos, or even Bedard. Bedard reminds me of a smaller Stamkos because of the shot. It's very heavy and powerful. He can score from distance. Michkov doesn't score his goals like that.

If you want to take a goal-scorer in the current NHL who his goal-scoring reminds me of the most, it's Matthews. Matthews is the best in the league at scoring goals within the vicinity of the net of the best 5 or 10 goalscorers within the NHL. He still can beat goalies clean from a little longer distance, and Michkov can too, but a disproportionate amount of his goal-scoring damage is near the net. And obviously there are plenty of differences. I'm not saying Michkov reminds me of Matthews, but the goal-scoring element is similar. You could also say there's some Kucherov with the overall hockey sense, playmaking, and stick-skills for a 5'10 winger that isn't blazing fast. There's probably no real great comparison out there for him. He's his own unique player.

Beyond the skillset, I can't get past that this guy always rises to the challenge. Any league you put him in, he breaks records. There are some athletes like that who you just know are destined for greatness because they keep setting the bar higher and higher, despite what challenge you might think is ahead of them. In terms of the last 3 or 4 years of his hockey career, Michkov has struggled no where. People tried to say last season that he wasn't good enough to get it done in the KHL. They used some of his SKA matches where he'd get like 2 or 3 shifts against him, and said that was proof. But that's just unrealistic. Can't expect a guy to score every game when they don't take a regular shift. When he was loaned to Sochi, he proved that he was still that dude. He set more records. He was as good as we thought he was.

And more specifically, his records are goal records. Putting the puck in the net is the most important skill in the game. Having a guy who is better than everyone else at that could result in a guy being the best player in the world. For many years, that's why Ovechkin was the best or second best player in the world, depending on how you viewed him compared to Crosby. So I obviously think there are differences between him and Ovechkin, but being that generational goal-scorer (even more so than like a Matthews) is what I think could be his ceiling. Michkov could be that guy that is pushing 60-70 goals per season. It might sound lofty, but he's been doing that everywhere else. He's been the most accomplished and overall best prospect to come from Russia since Ovechkin, why can't he be that guy? All he's shown us is that he is that guy. Maybe he'll fall short of that, but even if he does, he should still be a star. I'm struggling to see him be worse than Kucherov level.

As for the war, the character questions, the contract, stuff like that, I realize this is a part of the equation, but I think when you add it all up, the risk is worth it at #2 in the draft. #7? A joke that five other teams made such a mistake. With the contract, I think there's some real misconception with Russian players. People act like there's a real chance they'll never come to the NHL. I know you guys had that problem with Fedotov, so it's easy for your mind to go to what you experienced with your own team, but respectfully he's not one of the best Russians of his generation and the situations aren't remotely the same. The fact of the matter is that all the best Russian players since like the Cold War have played in the NHL, and in the last 10-15 years, all of them have come no later than their early/mid 20's.

It's a different era. Yeah, relations might not be good between Russia and USA/Canada, but the Russian players still know the possibility for them in the NHL. Michkov will absolutely come over to the NHL rather quickly. I assume it'll be right away when his contract is up. He'll probably be the best player in the KHL and ready for a bigger challenge, but even if he signs for like another two years (I don't think he will), he's likely stepping into the NHL as one of the best wingers in the game, so I think the wait is worth it, whenever he comes.

As for his character, I think a lot of this has been blown way out of proportion. None of this even came up until the draft starting coming into focus. Funny how NHL affiliation for a player starts to bring out this tribalism. The hockey world didn't care enough to bring this stuff up when he was only some young Russian hockey prodigy with no connection to NA hockey. The only two things out there against him are one anonymous quote from a teammate that says he's "me, me, me" and then one scout that thought he had an attitude. Some people act like the character concerns are that he's some real criminal or something. If it's true that he's "me, me, me", is that really such a big deal? You guys have DeAngelo, so you know what a player with some character concerns is like. Evander Kane also has played in the NHL for a long time. The NHL certainly has a place for players with character concerns, and DeAngelo/Kane are good players. They aren't great players.

There are plenty of star athletes out there with a cocky attitude. If they produce, none of that stuff matters. But I wouldn't rule out that it's almost entirely overblown because people are trying to cover their tracks for Michkov being passed over by so many teams, and the general polarization about this player with many aspects like the war, his contract, and a general Russian factor. Russian players can sometimes get an unfair reputation, and sometimes it effects their draft stock.

As for the war, I'm not going to play colonel and forecast for you what might happen. That stuff can upend a lot in this world and transcends hockey. I'm not going to tell you it's impossible that Michkov is kidnapped or he's drafted into the Russian army or he's banned from the NHL for being Russian. I think those types of arguments people make are silly and far overdoing it, but look, it's a war. Hockey is secondary to all that happens with a war. I'm not going to say it's impossible there's some problem that makes it such that Michkov never plays in the NHL or his NHL career is upended. But my attitude with this stuff has always been that if this even starts to come close to being in real focus and isn't just a deranged conspiracy theory, this world has much bigger problems than will Michkov be able to play in the NHL. So I think you just take these elements out of it and just focus on the hockey. The hockey world isn't qualified to forecast what might happen in these areas, and it's best to just focus on picking the best players. I think the teams that considered this will pay for their mistake.

So in summary, I think this dude could be one of those historic players in hockey history. Maybe that sounds silly, but if he becomes that generational goal-scorer I think he could be, he will take your team to another level and really define a generation or two of Flyers hockey. If you look at the previous generation, the generational players won Cups with Crosby winning 3 and Ovechkin 1. I tend to think it's going to eventually happen with McDavid. If you look at the best players to never win one, they tend to be below the generational threshold. So if that's what Michkov is, and I know that's a big leap from where he's currently at, that's what you guys might be looking at with him leading your team the next 20 years. As a Rangers fan, I hate that this is what I expect my team to have to contend with over the next 20 years. I think Michkov will be a big problem for us. I think Michkov may just be that dude that keeps raising the bar and setting goal-scoring records in the NHL, like he's done everywhere else. Of course, I can't guarantee that. Plenty can happen. I wouldn't be worried about his hockey ability being good enough to at least be a star, but it's true that until he proves it, you can't be sure that's what he'll become.

I think you guys are going to be in for an exciting team over the coming years. That's always said about rebuilding teams. People compliment how they have so many picks and prospects. All that. A lot of the time it doesn't turn out that way because rebuilds are not easy and a lot that you forecast doesn't turn out happening. It's better to be good than a team you hope will be good. Hope doesn't always actualize, but I say entirely due to Michkov that I think he's just that dude. He will lead you guys to a lot of success.

Great, exciting post. Thank you for sharing here.

I've been making my way through the multi-part Michkov thread on the prospect board, and I've really appreciated your posts both then and now post-draft. I'm looking forward to reading more from you, and I'm sure Flyers fans here will love that too, especially if you're going to be as thorough and complimentary as you have been (especially as a Rangers fan).

 

[TCTC]

Ovi is a brick shithouse. He's like 6'2" and 230 lbs.

Yeah maybe I just underestimate sometimes what a juggernaut Ovechkin is. Still looks funny though.

 

[FLYguy3911]

@LegionOfDoom91

 

[Appleyard]

Ovi is a brick shithouse. He's like 6'2" and 230 lbs.

If believe his measurements from KHL and Olympics (cm so more "accurate") he is 191cm. Which is 6'3.25.

His current NHL listing has him at 6'3 and 238lbs.

 

[Fly0rDie]

Take this as a compliment, of all the high picks and highly ranked prospects in recent drafts, this was the guy I was shuddering might be picked by a Metro team.

I normally don't care who has the first pick, just as long as they are kept in the Metro. But even some of them, it's not too big of a deal. And as good as Bedard was, I think there's a limit with him that doesn't worry me too much. He'll be very good, but he doesn't worry me. The only guy since Dahlin that I really was hoping wouldn't be picked by a Metro team was Michkov, and that's because I think his potential is the best player in the world and a true generational player. I'm not guaranteeing that's what he becomes. He'll have to prove that out over the course of his career, but having followed him the last few years, I think he's probably the most fascinating hockey player to emerge in a while.

What is so fascinating about Michkov is that he just has an otherworldly ability to find the net. He knows when the goalie isn't well-positioned, he knows when the puck will deflect to a certain area, he knows when a defenseman is sleeping at the back door, he has an incredible sense of spacing of where he is, where the net is, where other players are. He also has a great release. It's very deceptive. He beats goalies clean without having scary shooting power, although his shooting power is also decent. And he obviously has unbelievable stick-skills too, and can score by undressing the whole defense and goalie. This guy just has a knack for scoring goals. It's not in the way that you see from Ovechkin blasting shots on the power play or Laine or Stamkos, or even Bedard. Bedard reminds me of a smaller Stamkos because of the shot. It's very heavy and powerful. He can score from distance. Michkov doesn't score his goals like that.

If you want to take a goal-scorer in the current NHL who his goal-scoring reminds me of the most, it's Matthews. Matthews is the best in the league at scoring goals within the vicinity of the net of the best 5 or 10 goalscorers within the NHL. He still can beat goalies clean from a little longer distance, and Michkov can too, but a disproportionate amount of his goal-scoring damage is near the net. And obviously there are plenty of differences. I'm not saying Michkov reminds me of Matthews, but the goal-scoring element is similar. You could also say there's some Kucherov with the overall hockey sense, playmaking, and stick-skills for a 5'10 winger that isn't blazing fast. There's probably no real great comparison out there for him. He's his own unique player.

Beyond the skillset, I can't get past that this guy always rises to the challenge. Any league you put him in, he breaks records. There are some athletes like that who you just know are destined for greatness because they keep setting the bar higher and higher, despite what challenge you might think is ahead of them. In terms of the last 3 or 4 years of his hockey career, Michkov has struggled no where. People tried to say last season that he wasn't good enough to get it done in the KHL. They used some of his SKA matches where he'd get like 2 or 3 shifts against him, and said that was proof. But that's just unrealistic. Can't expect a guy to score every game when they don't take a regular shift. When he was loaned to Sochi, he proved that he was still that dude. He set more records. He was as good as we thought he was.

And more specifically, his records are goal records. Putting the puck in the net is the most important skill in the game. Having a guy who is better than everyone else at that could result in a guy being the best player in the world. For many years, that's why Ovechkin was the best or second best player in the world, depending on how you viewed him compared to Crosby. So I obviously think there are differences between him and Ovechkin, but being that generational goal-scorer (even more so than like a Matthews) is what I think could be his ceiling. Michkov could be that guy that is pushing 60-70 goals per season. It might sound lofty, but he's been doing that everywhere else. He's been the most accomplished and overall best prospect to come from Russia since Ovechkin, why can't he be that guy? All he's shown us is that he is that guy. Maybe he'll fall short of that, but even if he does, he should still be a star. I'm struggling to see him be worse than Kucherov level.

As for the war, the character questions, the contract, stuff like that, I realize this is a part of the equation, but I think when you add it all up, the risk is worth it at #2 in the draft. #7? A joke that five other teams made such a mistake. With the contract, I think there's some real misconception with Russian players. People act like there's a real chance they'll never come to the NHL. I know you guys had that problem with Fedotov, so it's easy for your mind to go to what you experienced with your own team, but respectfully he's not one of the best Russians of his generation and the situations aren't remotely the same. The fact of the matter is that all the best Russian players since like the Cold War have played in the NHL, and in the last 10-15 years, all of them have come no later than their early/mid 20's.

It's a different era. Yeah, relations might not be good between Russia and USA/Canada, but the Russian players still know the possibility for them in the NHL. Michkov will absolutely come over to the NHL rather quickly. I assume it'll be right away when his contract is up. He'll probably be the best player in the KHL and ready for a bigger challenge, but even if he signs for like another two years (I don't think he will), he's likely stepping into the NHL as one of the best wingers in the game, so I think the wait is worth it, whenever he comes.

I think getting him on your team so soon isn't as important as most think. Regardless of whether jobs are on the line or not, the fact of the matter is that the majority of top 10 prospects, especially those not picked #1, are not better than middle of the lineup players before year 4 or 5. If you look back at the 2019 and 2020 drafts, which are the drafts 4 and 3 seasons removed, which is the crux of the window people discuss with Michkov, there are like 6 or so of the 2-10 drafted players in those two drafts that are more than middle of the lineup players by that point. The rest, for various reasons, aren't. They could get injured, they could bust, maybe the opportunity isn't there, maybe it's a combination of everything.

Draft picks are not sure-things. Many of them don't end up what the hope is on draft day, so I think getting a guy you can be pretty sure of what his hockey ability will become relative to pretty much any other draft-eligible prospect is more valuable than most people will admit. Sure, there's a chance you get the odd Zegras or Seider or Stuetzle that can contribute sooner, but really the majority of them aren't any better in year 3 than the average dude you sign off the street for 3 million in free agency that changes teams every few years.

As for his character, I think a lot of this has been blown way out of proportion. None of this even came up until the draft starting coming into focus. Funny how NHL affiliation for a player starts to bring out this tribalism. The hockey world didn't care enough to bring this stuff up when he was only some young Russian hockey prodigy with no connection to NA hockey. The only two things out there against him are one anonymous quote from a teammate that says he's "me, me, me" and then one scout that thought he had an attitude. Some people act like the character concerns are that he's some real criminal or something. If it's true that he's "me, me, me", is that really such a big deal? You guys have DeAngelo, so you know what a player with some character concerns is like. Evander Kane also has played in the NHL for a long time. The NHL certainly has a place for players with character concerns, and DeAngelo/Kane are good players. They aren't great players.

There are plenty of star athletes out there with a cocky attitude. If they produce, none of that stuff matters. But I wouldn't rule out that it's almost entirely overblown because people are trying to cover their tracks for Michkov being passed over by so many teams, and the general polarization about this player with many aspects like the war, his contract, and a general Russian factor. Russian players can sometimes get an unfair reputation, and sometimes it effects their draft stock.

As for the war, I'm not going to play colonel and forecast for you what might happen. That stuff can upend a lot in this world and transcends hockey. I'm not going to tell you it's impossible that Michkov is kidnapped or he's drafted into the Russian army or he's banned from the NHL for being Russian. I think those types of arguments people make are silly and far overdoing it, but look, it's a war. Hockey is secondary to all that happens with a war. I'm not going to say it's impossible there's some problem that makes it such that Michkov never plays in the NHL or his NHL career is upended. But my attitude with this stuff has always been that if this even starts to come close to being in real focus and isn't just a deranged conspiracy theory, this world has much bigger problems than will Michkov be able to play in the NHL. So I think you just take these elements out of it and just focus on the hockey. The hockey world isn't qualified to forecast what might happen in these areas, and it's best to just focus on picking the best players. I think the teams that considered this will pay for their mistake.

So in summary, I think this dude could be one of those historic players in hockey history. Maybe that sounds silly, but if he becomes that generational goal-scorer I think he could be, he will take your team to another level and really define a generation or two of Flyers hockey. If you look at the previous generation, the generational players won Cups with Crosby winning 3 and Ovechkin 1. I tend to think it's going to eventually happen with McDavid. If you look at the best players to never win one, they tend to be below the generational threshold. So if that's what Michkov is, and I know that's a big leap from where he's currently at, that's what you guys might be looking at with him leading your team the next 20 years. As a Rangers fan, I hate that this is what I expect my team to have to contend with over the next 20 years. I think Michkov will be a big problem for us. I think Michkov may just be that dude that keeps raising the bar and setting goal-scoring records in the NHL, like he's done everywhere else. Of course, I can't guarantee that. Plenty can happen. I wouldn't be worried about his hockey ability being good enough to at least be a star, but it's true that until he proves it, you can't be sure that's what he'll become.

I think you guys are going to be in for an exciting team over the coming years. That's always said about rebuilding teams. People compliment how they have so many picks and prospects. All that. A lot of the time it doesn't turn out that way because rebuilds are not easy and a lot that you forecast doesn't turn out happening. It's better to be good than a team you hope will be good. Hope doesn't always actualize, but I say entirely due to Michkov that I think he's just that dude. He will lead you guys to a lot of success.

Thank you… Incredibly detailed and thorough post… As @Redpath mentioned, I’m looking forward to your posts about Michkovs development this upcoming season.

 

[FlyerNutter]

Take this as a compliment, of all the high picks and highly ranked prospects in recent drafts, this was the guy I was shuddering might be picked by a Metro team.

I normally don't care who has the first pick, just as long as they are kept in the Metro. But even some of them, it's not too big of a deal. And as good as Bedard was, I think there's a limit with him that doesn't worry me too much. He'll be very good, but he doesn't worry me. The only guy since Dahlin that I really was hoping wouldn't be picked by a Metro team was Michkov, and that's because I think his potential is the best player in the world and a true generational player. I'm not guaranteeing that's what he becomes. He'll have to prove that out over the course of his career, but having followed him the last few years, I think he's probably the most fascinating hockey player to emerge in a while.

What is so fascinating about Michkov is that he just has an otherworldly ability to find the net. He knows when the goalie isn't well-positioned, he knows when the puck will deflect to a certain area, he knows when a defenseman is sleeping at the back door, he has an incredible sense of spacing of where he is, where the net is, where other players are. He also has a great release. It's very deceptive. He beats goalies clean without having scary shooting power, although his shooting power is also decent. And he obviously has unbelievable stick-skills too, and can score by undressing the whole defense and goalie. This guy just has a knack for scoring goals. It's not in the way that you see from Ovechkin blasting shots on the power play or Laine or Stamkos, or even Bedard. Bedard reminds me of a smaller Stamkos because of the shot. It's very heavy and powerful. He can score from distance. Michkov doesn't score his goals like that.

If you want to take a goal-scorer in the current NHL who his goal-scoring reminds me of the most, it's Matthews. Matthews is the best in the league at scoring goals within the vicinity of the net of the best 5 or 10 goalscorers within the NHL. He still can beat goalies clean from a little longer distance, and Michkov can too, but a disproportionate amount of his goal-scoring damage is near the net. And obviously there are plenty of differences. I'm not saying Michkov reminds me of Matthews, but the goal-scoring element is similar. You could also say there's some Kucherov with the overall hockey sense, playmaking, and stick-skills for a 5'10 winger that isn't blazing fast. There's probably no real great comparison out there for him. He's his own unique player.

Beyond the skillset, I can't get past that this guy always rises to the challenge. Any league you put him in, he breaks records. There are some athletes like that who you just know are destined for greatness because they keep setting the bar higher and higher, despite what challenge you might think is ahead of them. In terms of the last 3 or 4 years of his hockey career, Michkov has struggled no where. People tried to say last season that he wasn't good enough to get it done in the KHL. They used some of his SKA matches where he'd get like 2 or 3 shifts against him, and said that was proof. But that's just unrealistic. Can't expect a guy to score every game when they don't take a regular shift. When he was loaned to Sochi, he proved that he was still that dude. He set more records. He was as good as we thought he was.

And more specifically, his records are goal records. Putting the puck in the net is the most important skill in the game. Having a guy who is better than everyone else at that could result in a guy being the best player in the world. For many years, that's why Ovechkin was the best or second best player in the world, depending on how you viewed him compared to Crosby. So I obviously think there are differences between him and Ovechkin, but being that generational goal-scorer (even more so than like a Matthews) is what I think could be his ceiling. Michkov could be that guy that is pushing 60-70 goals per season. It might sound lofty, but he's been doing that everywhere else. He's been the most accomplished and overall best prospect to come from Russia since Ovechkin, why can't he be that guy? All he's shown us is that he is that guy. Maybe he'll fall short of that, but even if he does, he should still be a star. I'm struggling to see him be worse than Kucherov level.

As for the war, the character questions, the contract, stuff like that, I realize this is a part of the equation, but I think when you add it all up, the risk is worth it at #2 in the draft. #7? A joke that five other teams made such a mistake. With the contract, I think there's some real misconception with Russian players. People act like there's a real chance they'll never come to the NHL. I know you guys had that problem with Fedotov, so it's easy for your mind to go to what you experienced with your own team, but respectfully he's not one of the best Russians of his generation and the situations aren't remotely the same. The fact of the matter is that all the best Russian players since like the Cold War have played in the NHL, and in the last 10-15 years, all of them have come no later than their early/mid 20's.

It's a different era. Yeah, relations might not be good between Russia and USA/Canada, but the Russian players still know the possibility for them in the NHL. Michkov will absolutely come over to the NHL rather quickly. I assume it'll be right away when his contract is up. He'll probably be the best player in the KHL and ready for a bigger challenge, but even if he signs for like another two years (I don't think he will), he's likely stepping into the NHL as one of the best wingers in the game, so I think the wait is worth it, whenever he comes.

I think getting him on your team so soon isn't as important as most think. Regardless of whether jobs are on the line or not, the fact of the matter is that the majority of top 10 prospects, especially those not picked #1, are not better than middle of the lineup players before year 4 or 5. If you look back at the 2019 and 2020 drafts, which are the drafts 4 and 3 seasons removed, which is the crux of the window people discuss with Michkov, there are like 6 or so of the 2-10 drafted players in those two drafts that are more than middle of the lineup players by that point. The rest, for various reasons, aren't. They could get injured, they could bust, maybe the opportunity isn't there, maybe it's a combination of everything.

Draft picks are not sure-things. Many of them don't end up what the hope is on draft day, so I think getting a guy you can be pretty sure of what his hockey ability will become relative to pretty much any other draft-eligible prospect is more valuable than most people will admit. Sure, there's a chance you get the odd Zegras or Seider or Stuetzle that can contribute sooner, but really the majority of them aren't any better in year 3 than the average dude you sign off the street for 3 million in free agency that changes teams every few years.

As for his character, I think a lot of this has been blown way out of proportion. None of this even came up until the draft starting coming into focus. Funny how NHL affiliation for a player starts to bring out this tribalism. The hockey world didn't care enough to bring this stuff up when he was only some young Russian hockey prodigy with no connection to NA hockey. The only two things out there against him are one anonymous quote from a teammate that says he's "me, me, me" and then one scout that thought he had an attitude. Some people act like the character concerns are that he's some real criminal or something. If it's true that he's "me, me, me", is that really such a big deal? You guys have DeAngelo, so you know what a player with some character concerns is like. Evander Kane also has played in the NHL for a long time. The NHL certainly has a place for players with character concerns, and DeAngelo/Kane are good players. They aren't great players.

There are plenty of star athletes out there with a cocky attitude. If they produce, none of that stuff matters. But I wouldn't rule out that it's almost entirely overblown because people are trying to cover their tracks for Michkov being passed over by so many teams, and the general polarization about this player with many aspects like the war, his contract, and a general Russian factor. Russian players can sometimes get an unfair reputation, and sometimes it effects their draft stock.

As for the war, I'm not going to play colonel and forecast for you what might happen. That stuff can upend a lot in this world and transcends hockey. I'm not going to tell you it's impossible that Michkov is kidnapped or he's drafted into the Russian army or he's banned from the NHL for being Russian. I think those types of arguments people make are silly and far overdoing it, but look, it's a war. Hockey is secondary to all that happens with a war. I'm not going to say it's impossible there's some problem that makes it such that Michkov never plays in the NHL or his NHL career is upended. But my attitude with this stuff has always been that if this even starts to come close to being in real focus and isn't just a deranged conspiracy theory, this world has much bigger problems than will Michkov be able to play in the NHL. So I think you just take these elements out of it and just focus on the hockey. The hockey world isn't qualified to forecast what might happen in these areas, and it's best to just focus on picking the best players. I think the teams that considered this will pay for their mistake.

So in summary, I think this dude could be one of those historic players in hockey history. Maybe that sounds silly, but if he becomes that generational goal-scorer I think he could be, he will take your team to another level and really define a generation or two of Flyers hockey. If you look at the previous generation, the generational players won Cups with Crosby winning 3 and Ovechkin 1. I tend to think it's going to eventually happen with McDavid. If you look at the best players to never win one, they tend to be below the generational threshold. So if that's what Michkov is, and I know that's a big leap from where he's currently at, that's what you guys might be looking at with him leading your team the next 20 years. As a Rangers fan, I hate that this is what I expect my team to have to contend with over the next 20 years. I think Michkov will be a big problem for us. I think Michkov may just be that dude that keeps raising the bar and setting goal-scoring records in the NHL, like he's done everywhere else. Of course, I can't guarantee that. Plenty can happen. I wouldn't be worried about his hockey ability being good enough to at least be a star, but it's true that until he proves it, you can't be sure that's what he'll become.

I think you guys are going to be in for an exciting team over the coming years. That's always said about rebuilding teams. People compliment how they have so many picks and prospects. All that. A lot of the time it doesn't turn out that way because rebuilds are not easy and a lot that you forecast doesn't turn out happening. It's better to be good than a team you hope will be good. Hope doesn't always actualize, but I say entirely due to Michkov that I think he's just that dude. He will lead you guys to a lot of success.

Thanks for the post boss

 

[mja]

Buddy, they're not working an accounting office together. It's professional sports. Competition at the highest level. If you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen. There's also plenty of former players that loved Tortorella.

There were players who loved Keenan, who was a complete sociopath. You don’t need a sociopath running things to have a championship-winning professional sports team. Hell, the last two championships in Philly came with f***ing Charlie Manuel and Doug Pederson at the helm respectively, two guys who are pretty much the polar opposite of Torts.

And why the f*** are we tolerating flagrant bullying in professional sports? Why are we ok with behavior we’d never accept in our own lives? Because they get paid millions to play a game, they should somehow forfeit being accorded the base level of respect that the rest of us expect and demand? It’s bullshit, plain and simple, and all it builds is the veneer of a winning culture.

 

[HeadLiceHatty]

Take this as a compliment, of all the high picks and highly ranked prospects in recent drafts, this was the guy I was shuddering might be picked by a Metro team.

I normally don't care who has the first pick, just as long as they are kept in the Metro. But even some of them, it's not too big of a deal. And as good as Bedard was, I think there's a limit with him that doesn't worry me too much. He'll be very good, but he doesn't worry me. The only guy since Dahlin that I really was hoping wouldn't be picked by a Metro team was Michkov, and that's because I think his potential is the best player in the world and a true generational player. I'm not guaranteeing that's what he becomes. He'll have to prove that out over the course of his career, but having followed him the last few years, I think he's probably the most fascinating hockey player to emerge in a while.

What is so fascinating about Michkov is that he just has an otherworldly ability to find the net. He knows when the goalie isn't well-positioned, he knows when the puck will deflect to a certain area, he knows when a defenseman is sleeping at the back door, he has an incredible sense of spacing of where he is, where the net is, where other players are. He also has a great release. It's very deceptive. He beats goalies clean without having scary shooting power, although his shooting power is also decent. And he obviously has unbelievable stick-skills too, and can score by undressing the whole defense and goalie. This guy just has a knack for scoring goals. It's not in the way that you see from Ovechkin blasting shots on the power play or Laine or Stamkos, or even Bedard. Bedard reminds me of a smaller Stamkos because of the shot. It's very heavy and powerful. He can score from distance. Michkov doesn't score his goals like that.

If you want to take a goal-scorer in the current NHL who his goal-scoring reminds me of the most, it's Matthews. Matthews is the best in the league at scoring goals within the vicinity of the net of the best 5 or 10 goalscorers within the NHL. He still can beat goalies clean from a little longer distance, and Michkov can too, but a disproportionate amount of his goal-scoring damage is near the net. And obviously there are plenty of differences. I'm not saying Michkov reminds me of Matthews, but the goal-scoring element is similar. You could also say there's some Kucherov with the overall hockey sense, playmaking, and stick-skills for a 5'10 winger that isn't blazing fast. There's probably no real great comparison out there for him. He's his own unique player.

Beyond the skillset, I can't get past that this guy always rises to the challenge. Any league you put him in, he breaks records. There are some athletes like that who you just know are destined for greatness because they keep setting the bar higher and higher, despite what challenge you might think is ahead of them. In terms of the last 3 or 4 years of his hockey career, Michkov has struggled no where. People tried to say last season that he wasn't good enough to get it done in the KHL. They used some of his SKA matches where he'd get like 2 or 3 shifts against him, and said that was proof. But that's just unrealistic. Can't expect a guy to score every game when they don't take a regular shift. When he was loaned to Sochi, he proved that he was still that dude. He set more records. He was as good as we thought he was.

And more specifically, his records are goal records. Putting the puck in the net is the most important skill in the game. Having a guy who is better than everyone else at that could result in a guy being the best player in the world. For many years, that's why Ovechkin was the best or second best player in the world, depending on how you viewed him compared to Crosby. So I obviously think there are differences between him and Ovechkin, but being that generational goal-scorer (even more so than like a Matthews) is what I think could be his ceiling. Michkov could be that guy that is pushing 60-70 goals per season. It might sound lofty, but he's been doing that everywhere else. He's been the most accomplished and overall best prospect to come from Russia since Ovechkin, why can't he be that guy? All he's shown us is that he is that guy. Maybe he'll fall short of that, but even if he does, he should still be a star. I'm struggling to see him be worse than Kucherov level.

As for the war, the character questions, the contract, stuff like that, I realize this is a part of the equation, but I think when you add it all up, the risk is worth it at #2 in the draft. #7? A joke that five other teams made such a mistake. With the contract, I think there's some real misconception with Russian players. People act like there's a real chance they'll never come to the NHL. I know you guys had that problem with Fedotov, so it's easy for your mind to go to what you experienced with your own team, but respectfully he's not one of the best Russians of his generation and the situations aren't remotely the same. The fact of the matter is that all the best Russian players since like the Cold War have played in the NHL, and in the last 10-15 years, all of them have come no later than their early/mid 20's.

It's a different era. Yeah, relations might not be good between Russia and USA/Canada, but the Russian players still know the possibility for them in the NHL. Michkov will absolutely come over to the NHL rather quickly. I assume it'll be right away when his contract is up. He'll probably be the best player in the KHL and ready for a bigger challenge, but even if he signs for like another two years (I don't think he will), he's likely stepping into the NHL as one of the best wingers in the game, so I think the wait is worth it, whenever he comes.

I think getting him on your team so soon isn't as important as most think. Regardless of whether jobs are on the line or not, the fact of the matter is that the majority of top 10 prospects, especially those not picked #1, are not better than middle of the lineup players before year 4 or 5. If you look back at the 2019 and 2020 drafts, which are the drafts 4 and 3 seasons removed, which is the crux of the window people discuss with Michkov, there are like 6 or so of the 2-10 drafted players in those two drafts that are more than middle of the lineup players by that point. The rest, for various reasons, aren't. They could get injured, they could bust, maybe the opportunity isn't there, maybe it's a combination of everything.

Draft picks are not sure-things. Many of them don't end up what the hope is on draft day, so I think getting a guy you can be pretty sure of what his hockey ability will become relative to pretty much any other draft-eligible prospect is more valuable than most people will admit. Sure, there's a chance you get the odd Zegras or Seider or Stuetzle that can contribute sooner, but really the majority of them aren't any better in year 3 than the average dude you sign off the street for 3 million in free agency that changes teams every few years.

As for his character, I think a lot of this has been blown way out of proportion. None of this even came up until the draft starting coming into focus. Funny how NHL affiliation for a player starts to bring out this tribalism. The hockey world didn't care enough to bring this stuff up when he was only some young Russian hockey prodigy with no connection to NA hockey. The only two things out there against him are one anonymous quote from a teammate that says he's "me, me, me" and then one scout that thought he had an attitude. Some people act like the character concerns are that he's some real criminal or something. If it's true that he's "me, me, me", is that really such a big deal? You guys have DeAngelo, so you know what a player with some character concerns is like. Evander Kane also has played in the NHL for a long time. The NHL certainly has a place for players with character concerns, and DeAngelo/Kane are good players. They aren't great players.

There are plenty of star athletes out there with a cocky attitude. If they produce, none of that stuff matters. But I wouldn't rule out that it's almost entirely overblown because people are trying to cover their tracks for Michkov being passed over by so many teams, and the general polarization about this player with many aspects like the war, his contract, and a general Russian factor. Russian players can sometimes get an unfair reputation, and sometimes it effects their draft stock.

As for the war, I'm not going to play colonel and forecast for you what might happen. That stuff can upend a lot in this world and transcends hockey. I'm not going to tell you it's impossible that Michkov is kidnapped or he's drafted into the Russian army or he's banned from the NHL for being Russian. I think those types of arguments people make are silly and far overdoing it, but look, it's a war. Hockey is secondary to all that happens with a war. I'm not going to say it's impossible there's some problem that makes it such that Michkov never plays in the NHL or his NHL career is upended. But my attitude with this stuff has always been that if this even starts to come close to being in real focus and isn't just a deranged conspiracy theory, this world has much bigger problems than will Michkov be able to play in the NHL. So I think you just take these elements out of it and just focus on the hockey. The hockey world isn't qualified to forecast what might happen in these areas, and it's best to just focus on picking the best players. I think the teams that considered this will pay for their mistake.

So in summary, I think this dude could be one of those historic players in hockey history. Maybe that sounds silly, but if he becomes that generational goal-scorer I think he could be, he will take your team to another level and really define a generation or two of Flyers hockey. If you look at the previous generation, the generational players won Cups with Crosby winning 3 and Ovechkin 1. I tend to think it's going to eventually happen with McDavid. If you look at the best players to never win one, they tend to be below the generational threshold. So if that's what Michkov is, and I know that's a big leap from where he's currently at, that's what you guys might be looking at with him leading your team the next 20 years. As a Rangers fan, I hate that this is what I expect my team to have to contend with over the next 20 years. I think Michkov will be a big problem for us. I think Michkov may just be that dude that keeps raising the bar and setting goal-scoring records in the NHL, like he's done everywhere else. Of course, I can't guarantee that. Plenty can happen. I wouldn't be worried about his hockey ability being good enough to at least be a star, but it's true that until he proves it, you can't be sure that's what he'll become.

I think you guys are going to be in for an exciting team over the coming years. That's always said about rebuilding teams. People compliment how they have so many picks and prospects. All that. A lot of the time it doesn't turn out that way because rebuilds are not easy and a lot that you forecast doesn't turn out happening. It's better to be good than a team you hope will be good. Hope doesn't always actualize, but I say entirely due to Michkov that I think he's just that dude. He will lead you guys to a lot of success.

Thanks for taking the time to post this, I’ve watched quite a bit of Michkov too, it didn’t take long to realize what a special talent he is, hopefully he has a long nhl career.

 

[RebusFlyer]

Take this as a compliment, of all the high picks and highly ranked prospects in recent drafts, this was the guy I was shuddering might be picked by a Metro team.

I normally don't care who has the first pick, just as long as they are kept in the Metro. But even some of them, it's not too big of a deal. And as good as Bedard was, I think there's a limit with him that doesn't worry me too much. He'll be very good, but he doesn't worry me. The only guy since Dahlin that I really was hoping wouldn't be picked by a Metro team was Michkov, and that's because I think his potential is the best player in the world and a true generational player. I'm not guaranteeing that's what he becomes. He'll have to prove that out over the course of his career, but having followed him the last few years, I think he's probably the most fascinating hockey player to emerge in a while.

What is so fascinating about Michkov is that he just has an otherworldly ability to find the net. He knows when the goalie isn't well-positioned, he knows when the puck will deflect to a certain area, he knows when a defenseman is sleeping at the back door, he has an incredible sense of spacing of where he is, where the net is, where other players are. He also has a great release. It's very deceptive. He beats goalies clean without having scary shooting power, although his shooting power is also decent. And he obviously has unbelievable stick-skills too, and can score by undressing the whole defense and goalie. This guy just has a knack for scoring goals. It's not in the way that you see from Ovechkin blasting shots on the power play or Laine or Stamkos, or even Bedard. Bedard reminds me of a smaller Stamkos because of the shot. It's very heavy and powerful. He can score from distance. Michkov doesn't score his goals like that.

If you want to take a goal-scorer in the current NHL who his goal-scoring reminds me of the most, it's Matthews. Matthews is the best in the league at scoring goals within the vicinity of the net of the best 5 or 10 goalscorers within the NHL. He still can beat goalies clean from a little longer distance, and Michkov can too, but a disproportionate amount of his goal-scoring damage is near the net. And obviously there are plenty of differences. I'm not saying Michkov reminds me of Matthews, but the goal-scoring element is similar. You could also say there's some Kucherov with the overall hockey sense, playmaking, and stick-skills for a 5'10 winger that isn't blazing fast. There's probably no real great comparison out there for him. He's his own unique player.

Beyond the skillset, I can't get past that this guy always rises to the challenge. Any league you put him in, he breaks records. There are some athletes like that who you just know are destined for greatness because they keep setting the bar higher and higher, despite what challenge you might think is ahead of them. In terms of the last 3 or 4 years of his hockey career, Michkov has struggled no where. People tried to say last season that he wasn't good enough to get it done in the KHL. They used some of his SKA matches where he'd get like 2 or 3 shifts against him, and said that was proof. But that's just unrealistic. Can't expect a guy to score every game when they don't take a regular shift. When he was loaned to Sochi, he proved that he was still that dude. He set more records. He was as good as we thought he was.

And more specifically, his records are goal records. Putting the puck in the net is the most important skill in the game. Having a guy who is better than everyone else at that could result in a guy being the best player in the world. For many years, that's why Ovechkin was the best or second best player in the world, depending on how you viewed him compared to Crosby. So I obviously think there are differences between him and Ovechkin, but being that generational goal-scorer (even more so than like a Matthews) is what I think could be his ceiling. Michkov could be that guy that is pushing 60-70 goals per season. It might sound lofty, but he's been doing that everywhere else. He's been the most accomplished and overall best prospect to come from Russia since Ovechkin, why can't he be that guy? All he's shown us is that he is that guy. Maybe he'll fall short of that, but even if he does, he should still be a star. I'm struggling to see him be worse than Kucherov level.

As for the war, the character questions, the contract, stuff like that, I realize this is a part of the equation, but I think when you add it all up, the risk is worth it at #2 in the draft. #7? A joke that five other teams made such a mistake. With the contract, I think there's some real misconception with Russian players. People act like there's a real chance they'll never come to the NHL. I know you guys had that problem with Fedotov, so it's easy for your mind to go to what you experienced with your own team, but respectfully he's not one of the best Russians of his generation and the situations aren't remotely the same. The fact of the matter is that all the best Russian players since like the Cold War have played in the NHL, and in the last 10-15 years, all of them have come no later than their early/mid 20's.

It's a different era. Yeah, relations might not be good between Russia and USA/Canada, but the Russian players still know the possibility for them in the NHL. Michkov will absolutely come over to the NHL rather quickly. I assume it'll be right away when his contract is up. He'll probably be the best player in the KHL and ready for a bigger challenge, but even if he signs for like another two years (I don't think he will), he's likely stepping into the NHL as one of the best wingers in the game, so I think the wait is worth it, whenever he comes.

I think getting him on your team so soon isn't as important as most think. Regardless of whether jobs are on the line or not, the fact of the matter is that the majority of top 10 prospects, especially those not picked #1, are not better than middle of the lineup players before year 4 or 5. If you look back at the 2019 and 2020 drafts, which are the drafts 4 and 3 seasons removed, which is the crux of the window people discuss with Michkov, there are like 6 or so of the 2-10 drafted players in those two drafts that are more than middle of the lineup players by that point. The rest, for various reasons, aren't. They could get injured, they could bust, maybe the opportunity isn't there, maybe it's a combination of everything.

Draft picks are not sure-things. Many of them don't end up what the hope is on draft day, so I think getting a guy you can be pretty sure of what his hockey ability will become relative to pretty much any other draft-eligible prospect is more valuable than most people will admit. Sure, there's a chance you get the odd Zegras or Seider or Stuetzle that can contribute sooner, but really the majority of them aren't any better in year 3 than the average dude you sign off the street for 3 million in free agency that changes teams every few years.

As for his character, I think a lot of this has been blown way out of proportion. None of this even came up until the draft starting coming into focus. Funny how NHL affiliation for a player starts to bring out this tribalism. The hockey world didn't care enough to bring this stuff up when he was only some young Russian hockey prodigy with no connection to NA hockey. The only two things out there against him are one anonymous quote from a teammate that says he's "me, me, me" and then one scout that thought he had an attitude. Some people act like the character concerns are that he's some real criminal or something. If it's true that he's "me, me, me", is that really such a big deal? You guys have DeAngelo, so you know what a player with some character concerns is like. Evander Kane also has played in the NHL for a long time. The NHL certainly has a place for players with character concerns, and DeAngelo/Kane are good players. They aren't great players.

There are plenty of star athletes out there with a cocky attitude. If they produce, none of that stuff matters. But I wouldn't rule out that it's almost entirely overblown because people are trying to cover their tracks for Michkov being passed over by so many teams, and the general polarization about this player with many aspects like the war, his contract, and a general Russian factor. Russian players can sometimes get an unfair reputation, and sometimes it effects their draft stock.

As for the war, I'm not going to play colonel and forecast for you what might happen. That stuff can upend a lot in this world and transcends hockey. I'm not going to tell you it's impossible that Michkov is kidnapped or he's drafted into the Russian army or he's banned from the NHL for being Russian. I think those types of arguments people make are silly and far overdoing it, but look, it's a war. Hockey is secondary to all that happens with a war. I'm not going to say it's impossible there's some problem that makes it such that Michkov never plays in the NHL or his NHL career is upended. But my attitude with this stuff has always been that if this even starts to come close to being in real focus and isn't just a deranged conspiracy theory, this world has much bigger problems than will Michkov be able to play in the NHL. So I think you just take these elements out of it and just focus on the hockey. The hockey world isn't qualified to forecast what might happen in these areas, and it's best to just focus on picking the best players. I think the teams that considered this will pay for their mistake.

So in summary, I think this dude could be one of those historic players in hockey history. Maybe that sounds silly, but if he becomes that generational goal-scorer I think he could be, he will take your team to another level and really define a generation or two of Flyers hockey. If you look at the previous generation, the generational players won Cups with Crosby winning 3 and Ovechkin 1. I tend to think it's going to eventually happen with McDavid. If you look at the best players to never win one, they tend to be below the generational threshold. So if that's what Michkov is, and I know that's a big leap from where he's currently at, that's what you guys might be looking at with him leading your team the next 20 years. As a Rangers fan, I hate that this is what I expect my team to have to contend with over the next 20 years. I think Michkov will be a big problem for us. I think Michkov may just be that dude that keeps raising the bar and setting goal-scoring records in the NHL, like he's done everywhere else. Of course, I can't guarantee that. Plenty can happen. I wouldn't be worried about his hockey ability being good enough to at least be a star, but it's true that until he proves it, you can't be sure that's what he'll become.

I think you guys are going to be in for an exciting team over the coming years. That's always said about rebuilding teams. People compliment how they have so many picks and prospects. All that. A lot of the time it doesn't turn out that way because rebuilds are not easy and a lot that you forecast doesn't turn out happening. It's better to be good than a team you hope will be good. Hope doesn't always actualize, but I say entirely due to Michkov that I think he's just that dude. He will lead you guys to a lot of success.

Most thoughtful post I have ever read on Flyers HFBoards. Thanks!

 

[BernieParent]

Take this as a compliment, of all the high picks and highly ranked prospects in recent drafts, this was the guy I was shuddering might be picked by a Metro team.

I normally don't care who has the first pick, just as long as they are kept in the Metro. But even some of them, it's not too big of a deal. And as good as Bedard was, I think there's a limit with him that doesn't worry me too much. He'll be very good, but he doesn't worry me. The only guy since Dahlin that I really was hoping wouldn't be picked by a Metro team was Michkov, and that's because I think his potential is the best player in the world and a true generational player. I'm not guaranteeing that's what he becomes. He'll have to prove that out over the course of his career, but having followed him the last few years, I think he's probably the most fascinating hockey player to emerge in a while.

What is so fascinating about Michkov is that he just has an otherworldly ability to find the net. He knows when the goalie isn't well-positioned, he knows when the puck will deflect to a certain area, he knows when a defenseman is sleeping at the back door, he has an incredible sense of spacing of where he is, where the net is, where other players are. He also has a great release. It's very deceptive. He beats goalies clean without having scary shooting power, although his shooting power is also decent. And he obviously has unbelievable stick-skills too, and can score by undressing the whole defense and goalie. This guy just has a knack for scoring goals. It's not in the way that you see from Ovechkin blasting shots on the power play or Laine or Stamkos, or even Bedard. Bedard reminds me of a smaller Stamkos because of the shot. It's very heavy and powerful. He can score from distance. Michkov doesn't score his goals like that.

If you want to take a goal-scorer in the current NHL who his goal-scoring reminds me of the most, it's Matthews. Matthews is the best in the league at scoring goals within the vicinity of the net of the best 5 or 10 goalscorers within the NHL. He still can beat goalies clean from a little longer distance, and Michkov can too, but a disproportionate amount of his goal-scoring damage is near the net. And obviously there are plenty of differences. I'm not saying Michkov reminds me of Matthews, but the goal-scoring element is similar. You could also say there's some Kucherov with the overall hockey sense, playmaking, and stick-skills for a 5'10 winger that isn't blazing fast. There's probably no real great comparison out there for him. He's his own unique player.

Beyond the skillset, I can't get past that this guy always rises to the challenge. Any league you put him in, he breaks records. There are some athletes like that who you just know are destined for greatness because they keep setting the bar higher and higher, despite what challenge you might think is ahead of them. In terms of the last 3 or 4 years of his hockey career, Michkov has struggled no where. People tried to say last season that he wasn't good enough to get it done in the KHL. They used some of his SKA matches where he'd get like 2 or 3 shifts against him, and said that was proof. But that's just unrealistic. Can't expect a guy to score every game when they don't take a regular shift. When he was loaned to Sochi, he proved that he was still that dude. He set more records. He was as good as we thought he was.

And more specifically, his records are goal records. Putting the puck in the net is the most important skill in the game. Having a guy who is better than everyone else at that could result in a guy being the best player in the world. For many years, that's why Ovechkin was the best or second best player in the world, depending on how you viewed him compared to Crosby. So I obviously think there are differences between him and Ovechkin, but being that generational goal-scorer (even more so than like a Matthews) is what I think could be his ceiling. Michkov could be that guy that is pushing 60-70 goals per season. It might sound lofty, but he's been doing that everywhere else. He's been the most accomplished and overall best prospect to come from Russia since Ovechkin, why can't he be that guy? All he's shown us is that he is that guy. Maybe he'll fall short of that, but even if he does, he should still be a star. I'm struggling to see him be worse than Kucherov level.

As for the war, the character questions, the contract, stuff like that, I realize this is a part of the equation, but I think when you add it all up, the risk is worth it at #2 in the draft. #7? A joke that five other teams made such a mistake. With the contract, I think there's some real misconception with Russian players. People act like there's a real chance they'll never come to the NHL. I know you guys had that problem with Fedotov, so it's easy for your mind to go to what you experienced with your own team, but respectfully he's not one of the best Russians of his generation and the situations aren't remotely the same. The fact of the matter is that all the best Russian players since like the Cold War have played in the NHL, and in the last 10-15 years, all of them have come no later than their early/mid 20's.

It's a different era. Yeah, relations might not be good between Russia and USA/Canada, but the Russian players still know the possibility for them in the NHL. Michkov will absolutely come over to the NHL rather quickly. I assume it'll be right away when his contract is up. He'll probably be the best player in the KHL and ready for a bigger challenge, but even if he signs for like another two years (I don't think he will), he's likely stepping into the NHL as one of the best wingers in the game, so I think the wait is worth it, whenever he comes.

I think getting him on your team so soon isn't as important as most think. Regardless of whether jobs are on the line or not, the fact of the matter is that the majority of top 10 prospects, especially those not picked #1, are not better than middle of the lineup players before year 4 or 5. If you look back at the 2019 and 2020 drafts, which are the drafts 4 and 3 seasons removed, which is the crux of the window people discuss with Michkov, there are like 6 or so of the 2-10 drafted players in those two drafts that are more than middle of the lineup players by that point. The rest, for various reasons, aren't. They could get injured, they could bust, maybe the opportunity isn't there, maybe it's a combination of everything.

Draft picks are not sure-things. Many of them don't end up what the hope is on draft day, so I think getting a guy you can be pretty sure of what his hockey ability will become relative to pretty much any other draft-eligible prospect is more valuable than most people will admit. Sure, there's a chance you get the odd Zegras or Seider or Stuetzle that can contribute sooner, but really the majority of them aren't any better in year 3 than the average dude you sign off the street for 3 million in free agency that changes teams every few years.

As for his character, I think a lot of this has been blown way out of proportion. None of this even came up until the draft starting coming into focus. Funny how NHL affiliation for a player starts to bring out this tribalism. The hockey world didn't care enough to bring this stuff up when he was only some young Russian hockey prodigy with no connection to NA hockey. The only two things out there against him are one anonymous quote from a teammate that says he's "me, me, me" and then one scout that thought he had an attitude. Some people act like the character concerns are that he's some real criminal or something. If it's true that he's "me, me, me", is that really such a big deal? You guys have DeAngelo, so you know what a player with some character concerns is like. Evander Kane also has played in the NHL for a long time. The NHL certainly has a place for players with character concerns, and DeAngelo/Kane are good players. They aren't great players.

There are plenty of star athletes out there with a cocky attitude. If they produce, none of that stuff matters. But I wouldn't rule out that it's almost entirely overblown because people are trying to cover their tracks for Michkov being passed over by so many teams, and the general polarization about this player with many aspects like the war, his contract, and a general Russian factor. Russian players can sometimes get an unfair reputation, and sometimes it effects their draft stock.

As for the war, I'm not going to play colonel and forecast for you what might happen. That stuff can upend a lot in this world and transcends hockey. I'm not going to tell you it's impossible that Michkov is kidnapped or he's drafted into the Russian army or he's banned from the NHL for being Russian. I think those types of arguments people make are silly and far overdoing it, but look, it's a war. Hockey is secondary to all that happens with a war. I'm not going to say it's impossible there's some problem that makes it such that Michkov never plays in the NHL or his NHL career is upended. But my attitude with this stuff has always been that if this even starts to come close to being in real focus and isn't just a deranged conspiracy theory, this world has much bigger problems than will Michkov be able to play in the NHL. So I think you just take these elements out of it and just focus on the hockey. The hockey world isn't qualified to forecast what might happen in these areas, and it's best to just focus on picking the best players. I think the teams that considered this will pay for their mistake.

So in summary, I think this dude could be one of those historic players in hockey history. Maybe that sounds silly, but if he becomes that generational goal-scorer I think he could be, he will take your team to another level and really define a generation or two of Flyers hockey. If you look at the previous generation, the generational players won Cups with Crosby winning 3 and Ovechkin 1. I tend to think it's going to eventually happen with McDavid. If you look at the best players to never win one, they tend to be below the generational threshold. So if that's what Michkov is, and I know that's a big leap from where he's currently at, that's what you guys might be looking at with him leading your team the next 20 years. As a Rangers fan, I hate that this is what I expect my team to have to contend with over the next 20 years. I think Michkov will be a big problem for us. I think Michkov may just be that dude that keeps raising the bar and setting goal-scoring records in the NHL, like he's done everywhere else. Of course, I can't guarantee that. Plenty can happen. I wouldn't be worried about his hockey ability being good enough to at least be a star, but it's true that until he proves it, you can't be sure that's what he'll become.

I think you guys are going to be in for an exciting team over the coming years. That's always said about rebuilding teams. People compliment how they have so many picks and prospects. All that. A lot of the time it doesn't turn out that way because rebuilds are not easy and a lot that you forecast doesn't turn out happening. It's better to be good than a team you hope will be good. Hope doesn't always actualize, but I say entirely due to Michkov that I think he's just that dude. He will lead you guys to a lot of success.

While I echo the sentiments of others in appreciation of your detailed insight, I also feel the need to distance my thinking from such lofty projections for Michkov, not because I disagree on their accuracy but simply as a self-defense mechanism. There are just too many factors that could derail his career from the trajectory that his talent reasonably sets out, and if there was ever a franchise that would be wise to check under their arena for First Nations burial grounds, the Flyers are it. I love that Briere took him and am very hopeful that he enjoys many years as a top-line goal scorer for the Flyers, but notions of a generational player raise my superstitions.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Yeah, that would be a very Flyers move.

Buddy, they're not working an accounting office together. It's professional sports. Competition at the highest level. If you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen. There's also plenty of former players that loved Tortorella.

Tortorella has faced locker room revolts in 2 of his last 3 stops, and he's been a full-blown loser out of touch with the sport for 20 years. The one time his roster dragged him to a Cup, the players didn't invite him to the party.

There's a huge difference between constructive heat and egomaniacal posturing. Tortorella does the latter, not the former. In fact, he proudly proclaimed he wouldn't be directly working with players and the players have confirmed that's true. He's just a lazy piece of shit. If anyone can't take the heat, it's Tortorella.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Lol how is that tin foil hat?


A young, undersized defenseman getting more minutes and experience in the minors isn't the end of world.

A coach demoting a player for not snapping on him is the height of incompetence. Defending it is akin to defending pushing a wheelchair down the steps. Blatantly bad.

York isn't undersized. And he needed NHL experience. You learn to play in the NHL by playing in the NHL. He couldn't get that to start the year, though, because he made the mistake of being more mature than his manchild coach

 

[Dr Jablonski PhD]

I think Michkov could be one of the most "innovative" players in the NHL since Datsyuk and Gretz. I've seen him do handfuls of things that to see a 17 y/o player doing it in the KHL is downright bonkers. He's highly original and clearly is always coming up with new/original solutions as to what the ideal play is. The attention to detail that he had in his DY is unbelievable. Things like having the presence of mind to release his shot as far out in front of his body as he possibly can to avoid getting stripped. Things like bank passing the puck from the corner to the slot off the side of the net frame. Things like getting himself into too much traffic and his only way to keep possession is to bank pass the puck off the end boards from the slot to the teammate at the faceoff dot. Like banking the puck off the goalie's back from behind the goal line and scoring. Like having a 3 vs 2 rush and then as the advantage deteriorates, having the poise to not force anything and hand off to the Dman to look for better things. It's hard to overstate how impressive it is to be so good that at 17 y/o he looks like he has eyes in the back of his head and borderline superpowers in the 2nd best league in the world. I predict that eventually we're going to see him weaponizing his possessions behind the net in ways no one has ever done before. When people start over committing to his lacrosse attempts, he might lob the puck over the net either to score off the goalie or pass to a teammate, or he'll put it back down and tuck into the other side of the net on his forehand. Or put it back down and dish to an open guy while all the defenders have their sticks in the air

 

[Chicken N Raffls]

Lol how is that tin foil hat?


A young, undersized defenseman getting more minutes and experience in the minors isn't the end of world.

I just don't get how you land there versus he got benched for his play on ice. Unless there was some credible report I missed, just seems like a made up reason.

Also, I could be wrong, but I thought Sanheim said he was never told why. If that's the case then I guess it's a mystery for everyone but TORTS

 

[PDX Flyer]

I just don't get how you land there versus he got benched for his play on ice. Unless there was some credible report I missed, just seems like a made up reason.

Also, I could be wrong, but I thought Sanheim said he was never told why. If that's the case then I guess it's a mystery for everyone but TORTS

I believe Frost also said he never got a reason. There is no way to paint these moves as Torts being a complete dick. How many other games were they scratched? Zero. Anyone who argues differently clearly has an agenda.