The Flyers and Matvei Michkov Need to Work Together To Help Him Succeed
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet joined Gord Stellick and Scott Laughlin on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio on Wednesday. There, he was asked whether the Philadelphia Flyers are heading down a path with Matvei Michkov similar to that of Trevor Zegras and the Anaheim Ducks.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Scott Laughlin: So we heard a lot of white noise about Trevor Zegras for years. And lo and behold, he’s with the Philadelphia Flyers. Are we hearing the start of that with Matvei Michkov?”
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Elliotte Friedman: “I think the thing about Michkov is I really like the way, the one thing I really like was the way the other Flyers players rallied around him and they really spoke highly of him. And I think that was important, right?
Because one of the things that you can kind of feel was that, and like, I’m not there, Gordo, I can only go by what I read, and I hear secondhand that there was not when Michkov was getting scratched there was nothing there that made me think that, because sometimes you can tell the players feel like that’s not right, or it shouldn’t happen, or something like that.
I didn’t see any of that. And that doesn’t mean that things are bad. It just means that I think the players understood why he wasn’t playing at times. So I thought it was really instructive and important that they came out in support of him. The one thing I really think though, Gordy, is that, again, this is a young guy who’s still like young. He’s a Russian player in North America; there’s not a lot around him. The old, I’ve been using ‘a stranger in strange land,’ and he’s been through a lot. And I think I really try to remember what I was like at that age, and what a gigantic cement head I was.
And some people figure it out later than others, and he’s got a lot more challenges to figure it out. And I just would like, I would just think like, if you’re Philly, you have to tread carefully. This is a talented guy, and this was a guy who wanted to play for you. It was such a great story when they worked it out. And he was, he could have gone a lot higher in the draft than he did.
So I think you give up on people like that at your own peril. You have to make sure every option is exhausted before you do. I really hope, and he didn’t really talk about it a lot yesterday (Tuesday), but I really hope he commits to staying for a good chunk of time in the Philly area this summer, because I think it sounds like it’s something that could really help him.
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But I think you, like I said, I think you give up on talents like that extremely carefully. It reminds me a lot of Vincent Lecavalier and John Tortorella. Jay Feaster said, I don’t care. You’re staying and you’re staying, figure it out.
And I think that’s generally with players of that talent, I think that’s generally the best approach.”
NHLRumors.com Note: Matvei Michkov knows he came into training camp behind the eight-ball, which set him back. He thought his talent could take him through the season, but with a new coach coming, he needed to be better prepared. The Flyers know how good he can be, but there are still parts of his game he needs to work on. However, with talented players like this, you need to let them do what they do best before developing the rest of their game.
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