Matvei Michkov‘s Instagram account is now private and contains no posts at all. For a 21-year-old who had spent two years happily posting in orange and black, that registered in Philadelphia, and it didn’t take long for people to start building a theory around it.
Hockey media personality Paul Jackson laid out the chain on X: the Instagram purge, the Philadelphia Flyers falling to 0-5-2, a comment appearing on another account from someone claiming player contacts and alluding to a trade, and what he described as similar rumblings that weren’t being denied to him.
“Really sus turn of events,” Jackson wrote.
What doesn’t exist is any reporting that an actual trade has happened. No established insider has said so. Frank Seravalli noted the Instagram wipe in his newsletter and left it at that, writing that it’s worth what it’s worth but doesn’t help calm the storm around the player.
Why would the Flyers trade Matvei Michkov?
The speculation has traction because the underlying situation is genuinely strange. Michkov is averaging around 15 minutes a night this season, logging a season-low 12:54 in the loss to Carolina. That is fourth-line usage for a player taken seventh overall and named rookie of the month in his first October in the league.
The friction isn’t new either. Michkov had a difficult sophomore season and was scratched during the playoffs, after which Daily Faceoff’s Anthony Di Marco reported that league sources believed Philadelphia would “listen on everyone,” a notable shift for a player who had been treated as untouchable. General manager Danny Briere publicly shut the talk down in exit interviews in May.
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The backdrop makes all of it louder. The Flyers have the worst start in franchise history, Rick Tocchet is already fielding questions about his own position, and the mood around the club is as bleak as it has been in years.
Michkov is in the final year of the three-year entry-level contract he signed in July 2024.
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