Kevin Weekes reported on Sunday that Matvei Michkov would prefer a fresh start away from the Philadelphia Flyers. The club has spent every day since trying to put the fire out. Elliotte Friedman has now poured something on it.
“It’s clear there is an issue between Michkov and his teammates,” Friedman said on Sportsnet. “There are issues there between him and some of the other players. The Flyers might have to clear some bodies out.”
He also explained why he takes the original report seriously, noting that Weekes wouldn’t have gone with it without reason and that Weekes’ former agent represents Michkov. Something leaked that Philadelphia either didn’t know about or didn’t want out.
“It’s a big one,” Friedman said.
Matvei Michkov this season:
| Goals | Games | Rank in ice time among Flyers forwards | Plus-minus |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 20 | 6th | -11 |
Has Matvei Michkov requested a trade?
General manager Daniel Briere spoke at the GM meetings in Toronto on Monday and said the report had blindsided him, with nothing whatsoever having come from Michkov’s camp.
“This is all news to me,” Briere said. Asked whether a trade was on the table at all, he was blunter. “No, that’s not the plan at all. We’ve never discussed that.”
Rick Tocchet went further on Wednesday morning, with an Edmonton media contingent that rarely bothers with the visiting room packed into the Flyers’ dressing area.
“You can’t comment on somebody blogging something that is not true,” Tocchet said.
Michkov himself gave reporters very little, saying he doesn’t read the news, isn’t doing interviews and is concentrating on the game. Asked whether he is happy in Philadelphia, he said “yeah, of course.”
What set all of this off was a bench sequence during the win over Vancouver, in which Michkov went at defenseman Nick Seeler, threw a water bottle and had to be physically held back by Noel Acciari and Porter Martone. Briere’s reading of that was unexpectedly warm.
“I actually like the fact that our guys are fiery and they want to win,” Briere said. “If we had a culture where guys are yelling at each other and no one is responding, a culture that guys don’t care about winning, then we’d be in trouble.”
The friction predates this week by about two years. Tocchet publicly questioned Michkov’s conditioning when he arrived for his first camp under him, his ice time dropped, and his production fell from 26 goals and 63 points as a rookie to 20 and 51 in year two.
He is better this season by every measure that matters to him. Ten goals in 20 games puts him on a 42-goal pace, he runs the top power-play unit, and he leads the club in scoring. He still ranks sixth among Flyers forwards in ice time at 15:54 a night, and he recently liked an Instagram post complaining about exactly that.
Philadelphia are 5-10-5 and 31st in the league in scoring at 2.25 goals a game. Michkov turns 22 next month and becomes a restricted free agent at the end of the season, which gives him almost no leverage at all.
Read more:
