On Film: Matvei Michkov #1
Let me state the obvious: we are not going to treat preseason as exactly literal. We are not going to act as if Matvei Michkov is going to score 110 points this season because he racked up 4 points in 2 preseason games.
But to borrow an adage popular in football analysis: film don’t lie.
It doesn’t matter if you score zero goals or ten goals in a preseason game, but the film that you produce matters. Are you putting out good tape? Are you showing good things that bode well for future success, or are you putting horrendous reps on tape that spell out a dire start to your season? That stuff matters. That’s why people can quite literally win jobs in the preseason. It matters what kind of tape you put out there in the preseason.
In the spirit of that, I’m going to visit what various players “put on tape” in the 2024 preseason. We’re going to begin with a player who’s nearest and dearest to my heart: Matvei Michkov.
If you know me and my work, you probably know that I’ve loved Matvei Michkov long before he was drafted 7th overall by the Philadelphia Flyers.
I’m not going to tell you why. At least not yet. I’m going to allow the tape to tell you why. Because… I’ll spoil this part… Michkov put a lot of good on tape.
We’ll start with the simple stuff. The “little things” that are no less descriptive of a player than a highlight reel goal or mind-bending assist.
Watch this clip with a focus on the winger at the top of the screen: that’s Michkov. Watch him from beginning to end. He’s relevant to the play long before he touches the puck.
Matvei Michkov
Michkov has an innate understanding of how to support the play. This primarily manifests on the offensive side of the puck because he’s always thinking offense, but he can and has transferred these instincts to defensive plays.
Tippett’s entry is denied and it creates a loose puck that Frost is wise enough to recover. That entire time, watch Matvei establish inside position on the Islanders defenseman. The defenseman doesn’t even know Matvei is there until he finds himself attached to the hip of MM39.
York is trailing behind the play, and he has a speed advantage on Mayfield. That’s the only available defense to York because Matvei is occupying the other defender.
Matvei didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to take that route. He could have skated to the back post and hoped that a brief window would flash open that Frost would hit for an easy tip-in, but he doesn’t.
He plants his rear in his defender and makes his stick available for a tip at the netfront. Frost doesn’t use that option, but he has a wide open York coming into the slot.
If Matvei had taken a different route, then the defender he’s occupying would have been in an easy position to check York as soon as he touches the puck, and that scoring chance would have gone nowhere.
Instead, they get a downhill shot from the slot. However, Matvei had tried to set up an even more dangerous chance than that.
As soon as the puck leaves Frost’s stick, he realizes that the pass isn’t meant for him. He crosses the goalie’s face and now he sets himself up at the far post. It’s a high-end offensive read, and I’m not blaming York for not making a one-touch pass across the slot… but look at what the scene resembles when York touches that puck.
If the first play was about showing the picture Matvei creates for his teammates that they haven’t yet learned to take full advantage of? This next play is a demonstration of how precisely Matvei sees the ice. When he has a picture, he doesn’t miss better opportunities. He’s freakishly clairvoyant.
Also, since he is a 19 year old kid, we’ll provide a brief glimpse of where there’s still room for even further growth. Matvei hasn’t achieved hockey IQ perfection… yet.
Starting as soon as the clip begins, here’s the picture that Matvei has when he touches the puck on the wall.
Look at the picture he’s given here. One of his four teammates is currently enthralled in a grappling match. Two of the remaining three are doing the wide receiver equivalent of running to get covered.
The stay-at-home Adam Ginning, who’s the last man to move up at ice? That’s the man who’s open, and Matvei puts it right on his tape and gives him a runway. It’s an easy entry to execute.
Unfortunately, it is stay-at-home Adam Ginning. So, while he does a good thing in taking the middle lane and dumping it off to a player anchored on the wall? He just kinda misses the pass.
This pass is going behind Frost. It may bounce off the wall and botch the whole entry. Even if Frost saves it and receives it going backward, the team would still need to regroup against a set Islanders structure.
Matvei stretches out to settle the errant pass himself, and he plays a quick give-and-go with Frost.
Frost plays it well. He makes the pass back to Matvei exactly when the Russian winger is given space to operate. The problem? The Islanders defend this very well.
Look at the picture when Matvei touches the puck. There’s nothing here.
Nobody is open here. The player on the far wall is inaccessible, but a rimmed puck along the wall is the option most players would opt for. Frost is covered. Helge Grans at the point has 2 sticks between him and the puck.
There’s nothing.
And that’s when Matvei goes and creates for himself. That attempt to score from behind the goal-line was his version of a checkdown for an NFL quarterback.
And he nailed the post. Another inch to the left? He’s banging that off the goalie’s back and in the net. That’s a dangerous scoring chance… made from nothing.
Just in case you think everyone’s vision and routes and anticipation are all perfect all the time… allow me to show you NHL players making mistakes that Matvei simply would never.
Matvei makes a nice breakup through the neutral zone and makes an effective if unspectacular read to push it all the way back to his d-man.
It’s in the moment before the defenseman gets the puck back to Matvei that you see how the sausage that is his elite hockey sense is made.
Before Matvei receives the puck, you can see his head processing his options in anticipation of receiving the puck. This is how he pivots immediately from a reception to a behind the back pass to Owen Tippett.
Using the information he gathers from this scan, he’s anticipating the route that Tippett should take and trusting he’ll take it.
When that pass leaves Matvei stick, you can see the lane opening up for Tippett. That defender surfing the blueline is toast. He has no chance at stopping the freight train that is Owen Tippett building speed into a puck reception.
That defender who parallels Matvei barely in the picture? His back is turned, and Tippett will put a move on that guy with ease. You’re gonna get a high danger chance out of this.
This is Owen Tippett smashing through the Islanders’ NZ formation.
Except… um… hello, Morgan Frost?
What is this? This is an NHL player doing… this. This is a player who has received plaudits for his hockey sense doing whatever on God’s green earth he’s doing here.
People make mistakes, but this one is a doozy. He’s cutting off Tippett’s skating lane. And destroying what could ultimately develop into a 2 on 1 between Matvei and Tippett.
Don’t believe me? That’s 3 defenders in the picture who are beaten if Tippett can turn the corner that Frost is inexplicably occupying.
The fourth defender was the one with his back turned running to get space who Tippett would probably destroy with this much momentum.
That’s 1 defender left with Tippett and Matvei Michkov on the attack.
These clips are easily 2 points for Michkov if the Flyers around him are executing at the level he’s executing.
This is insanely special stuff. And these aren’t even the top highlights of his performance.
For our next rep here, you get to see some of Matvei’s instincts away from the puck. It is not as if he has none, contrary to popular belief!
Matvei Michkov is a shark. He’s constantly hunting for offense. Even when he’s away from the puck, he’s calculating how he can force a quick turnover and develop it into a scoring chance.
But first, we begin with Michkov’s knack for creating scoring chances with his spatial awareness.
This is when Erik Johnson touches the puck. He moves right into a shooting motion off of his reception. If he didn’t? He’d have seen Matvei sneaking into space.
That’s a basic pass to set up Matvei Michkov with the puck while Owen Tippett is crashing the net with only one defender in between both.
This is a small-area 2 on 1 if Johnson sees it, but Michkov sees things that even the vets of the league do not. As the tape pours in? The Flyers will learn to see it.
The ensuing turnover squirts directly to Pelech. If Michkov wasn’t wired to hunt offense at all times, he might have the body stability to forecheck harder than this. But he doesn’t have his feet under him.
He gets there with sheer effort, though. He provides an obstacle and makes Pelech maneuver around his stick before chipping the puck up to the winger on the wall.
Tsyplakov collects the puck on the wall here and makes an impressive move on the first touch to neutralize Frost’s pressure and give himself time to plan.
Michkov knows this game better than anyone. He knows exactly what the other team’s Russian winger sees. The trailing defenseman as Michkov backchecks on by.
Michkov intentionally opens the passing lane that his prey wants and simultaneously gives the false idea that he’s about to pressure the puck carrier directly. That’s enough to make Tsyplakov rush into the plan he concocted earlier.
And walk right into Michkov’s trap in so doing.
This is the picture after Michkov has stolen the puck.
The path to the net is cluttered. That defender further back is taking the correct angle. Frost is the only option available presently, and he has two sticks in that passing lane. He could become the Plexiglass Punisher, but he hasn’t been about that life since he was 16.
He waits. He sees another option emerging. Owen Tippett is on the back of the screen, storming back into the zone.
Yeah, sometimes you can’t just plan your way into the easy play. Sometimes, you just have to hit this absolute nonsense because you saw an extremely narrow window, and then hit it perfectly.
Michkov faked a pass to Frost with his shoulders and convinced the defender closest to him to reach out in an attempt to clog up that lane.
All he did was open his triangle wide enough that Matvei could use it to fit the puck through a narrow window while getting it to his real target: Owen Tippett.
Matvei puts enough touch on this pass that Tippett skates into a one-timer.
From there, he extends possession a number of times and I could do even further breakdown on about 2 more sequences in this shift leading to multiple shot attempts… but I think I’m making my point here.
These weren’t Michkov’s ultimate highlights of the night. Those moments were already analyzed. Jake did a good job on two in particular, and I’ll just post those here so they can wash over you.
Plays like this? They’re all over his tape. Film don’t lie. This kid is a hockey genius. And he has the small-area skill to make something out of absolutely nothing.
Just look at the play preceding the pass to York. The way he absolutely fleeces Reilly.
After Frost makes a suboptimal pass to Michkov… and I’m not sure if it deflects off of Reilly’s stick, so I’m not going to blame him for it… Matvei looks like he’s going to lose this race.
Reilly thinks he has the puck here. He thinks he won this race. He felt tension against his blade that he believed to be the puck. He is now backhand passing absolutely nothing because Matvei has this guy in a genjutsu. He’s passing a nonexistent puck. He’s lost. And from another angle, you can see why.
That bit of tension on his blade Reilly felt? It wasn’t the puck. It was Matvei’s blade while he coralled it around the puck. Reilly had the puck stolen from him before he ever even had possession of the puck.
Reilly is wondering how he messed up so spectacularly. He’s still confused about how Matvei Michkov has the puck, and he does not. In the meantime, that’s when Michkov is spotting York entering the zone and setting up the game winning goal.
Oh, and just for fun? Here’s Jake describing some other… well… absolute nonsense.
There it is. That’s what Matvei Michkov put on film in a preseason game against the Islanders. That’s the stuff he puts on film regularly, and that’s the stuff that had me loving this prospect before he was draft eligible.
He’s a special player. A mastermind who thinks the game steps ahead of even seasoned NHLers.
The film doesn’t lie. This is a kid with the potential to break this game.
Join The Chase
Read More
Sidney Crosby’s egregious flop gets its own billboard on I-95, courtesy of Phans of Philly
Phans of Philly erected a billboard along I-95 North in…
Pittsburgh fans chanting “F*ck the Flyers” at the NFL Draft while down 3-0 in the series is peak desperation
A “Fuck the Flyers” chant broke out in Pittsburgh ahead…
WATCH: Penguins poked the bear and the Flyers made them pay for it
Wednesday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena was everything the Penguins-Flyers…
Comments (0)