Matvei Michkov has a flair and fire all his own

I was going to write a piece yesterday summarizing the first media availability of Philadelphia’s own Russian sensation, Matvei Michkov.

Unfortunately I made the grave mistake of drafting that particular piece through the infrastructure of WordPress, and WordPress decided that they’re too into Michkov today and the whole site went down…and it took my draft with it.

Matvei Michkov arrives in Philadelphia, who is he to the Philadelphia Flyers?

That piece is somewhere in oblivion as we speak. That piece was going to be a more run-of-the-mill breakdown of what was said at the availability, but you’ve all read that already. You’ve probably read it multiple times by other talented writers. I don’t want to just parrot what everyone else is doing, so here’s what we’re going to do:

We’re going to drill down on one takeaway. We’re going to elucidate one thing that shone above all the rest. We’re going to talk about the thing that I will remember from this availability months and probably years down the line, and there’s only one thing like that. It isn’t a quote, either. It’s a tenor.

Prepared for takeoff in the City of Brotherly Love. #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/24LPrbsdz6

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) July 24, 2024

Matvei Michkov has a special fire.

I don’t love resorting to things like this. I think one of the silliest habits that NHL scouts have is grading a player’s “compete levels,” as if they could possibly know. People will say “this guy doesn’t compete hard,” and they’ll be talking about Adam Fox while he posts the best two-way results in the sport. They’ll talk about “this guy competes hard every shift,” and meanwhile he’s getting crushed on a shift-by-shift basis but just happens to hit some guys before or after they score on him. They clearly don’t know.

That isn’t a statement born of hubris. Nine times out of ten, I don’t know. Because of that, I tend to steer away from talking about a player’s competitiveness unless it’s absolutely necessary. Sometimes, there’s just exceptions. Sometimes, you just know. You see it.

Matvei Michkov is that type of person, and it has shone through in a tremendous way ever since he touched down in North America. From the moment his flight touched down, you saw that side of him shining through.

On Michkov: after a 22 hour flight and 2 hour ride from JFK, and after getting to the SkateZone and meeting with Flyers staff, he immediately asked if he could go on the ice. He couldn't, as the one rink in use at the moment was taken up by a sled hockey team.

— Kevin Kurz (@KKurzNHL) July 23, 2024

Traveling from Perm, Russia to Voorhees, New Jersey wasn’t enough to dull his appetite for the sport of hockey. As soon as he arrived, he wanted to get on the ice. He was denied because the ice was already being used so he settled for a workout and some time in the shooting room.

This is a side of him that was hinted at while he was in Russia. Through Russian translators, he would talk about how he often only takes 2 weeks or less away from on-ice workouts in his summers. Like Nikita Kucherov before him, he just can’t find it within himself to stay off the ice for extended periods of time.

You don’t hear a whole lot about Kucherov’s special fire, but it’s there. He’s not typically regarded as the extreme end of competitiveness, unless you know him and you hear about what his summers are like. His skill level is not entirely something he was born with. His special ability to execute flawlessly in the tightest of pockets was forged through endless on-ice workouts and an unyielding drive to continuously get better.

But it isn’t just the work ethic with Matvei Michkov. It isn’t just the meticulous detail he’s put into his craft. There’s a palpable fire that burns inside of him, and that’s what shone through in the press conference.

In one simple way, he managed to say this unironically:

Matvei Michkov: “Playing in the NHL can be a lot of guys. Winning? Not many.”

— Jon Bailey (@ByJonBailey) July 24, 2024

The quote the got the most attention was Danny Briere confirming that the Flyers don’t literally see Matvei Michkov as the savior of the organization, and that’s prudent. That’s the way you should say things and the way you should see things when you’re constructing a hockey team.

But the more interesting part came when Matvei was asked about the label that’s been thrust upon him, ostensibly, by fans. “Do you embrace that label or dismiss it?”

Michkov’s response was to snicker and shrug. “The main idea was always to win. I’m here to help the team win. Just to play is not my style. I’m here to win.

Yes, you read that right. I listened to that quote multiple times. There was actually some misreporting on this quote that takes some of the borderline psychotic punch away from it. “Just to play my style and win” is kind of boilerplate.

But Michkov added on, “Just to play is NOT my style. I’m here to win.”

After he was asked whether he embraces the label of AN ORGANIZATION’S SAVIOR! Am I successfully depicting that this kid has a screw loose yet? I mean that as the highest form of compliment, too.

When he was asked what he could bring to the lineup, he immediately began ranting in Russian and running through what I can only imagine was a laundry list of things that the translator did not fully pick up. In fact, even the translator seemed to admit that it was a bit much to convey when he humorously said, “… okay.”

What he got?

“I put the goals on the scoreboard. Help the team win night after night so the fans can enjoy the games more and more. I want to help the team win the whole thing.”

He was asked whether or not he had any goals for the team. Goals, points, anything like that.

“The first plan is for the team to make the playoffs. My personal plans? I will keep to myself. They are there, but I will keep them to myself.”

Did you notice the switch? The question was about goals. He responded with the plans he has. At first, I might have thought that it was simply lost in translation. But it wasn’t. Matvei understands English now, so he heard that he didn’t answer the question of goals. He answered a question of plans. So he added something.

“The goal? To go all the way.”

Now backtrack. We are dealing with a 19 year old kid in an entirely new country. Everything around him is different. Matvei Michkov is about to play his first game in the NHL a few months from now. And he already plans… he PLANS… to bring his team to the playoffs. He has personal PLANS for himself, not goals, as far as individual production is concerned.

These thing sound like reasonable goals, but Matvei Michkov is not reasonable. Those aren’t the goals. Those are the plans. The goal is to be the best team in the league and lift the Stanley Cup.

Do you understand now? He’s nuts. He is not right in the head. He has the same screws loose that Nathan MacKinnon has. Their games don’t have that many rhymes to them, but their personalities? They’re wired in exactly the same way.

No wonder there were whispers of “personality issues” and all the rest of it in the pre-draft process.

Matvei Michkov just simply isn’t wired like most hockey players. He has absurdly high expectations for himself and others. He has an unrelenting obsession and burning desire where the sport of hockey is concerned.

But that won’t hold him back. That won’t cause him to burn out. That fire is what will fuel him and define him for the rest of his career. That fire is what separates him from every other talented kid to come down the pike.

It’s not entitlement. He doesn’t just expect to be handed superiority. He doesn’t anticipate that someone will climb him to the top of the mountain. He’s telling you that he will take superiority for himself. He’s telling you that he will climb to the top of that mountain.

Danny Briere noticed it himself. He recounted the phenomenon to Anthony Gargano on his show.

“He’s got the flair of a superstar already. We haven’t had someone like him in a long, long time. Our last big superstar was probably Claude Giroux, but he didn’t come in at 19 years old with that kind of flair. He built himself to that point. To have someone who comes in with that kind of status already? The last one was probably Eric Lindros.”

There’s your personality flaw. He knows what he is, and he isn’t afraid to tell you what he’s going to become. And that can rub people the wrong way.

It may sound like boasting, but these aren’t goals he has… they’re plans.

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