Matvei Michkov breaks media silence ahead of Wednesday’s season restart

The Matvei Michkov situation has been the dominant storyline of the Flyers season and honestly, we’re all a little tired of talking about it. Showed up to camp out of shape, minutes have been an issue, relationship with Rick Tocchet has been dissected from every angle. We know. You know. Everyone knows.

Ahead of Wednesday’s season restart against the Washington Capitals, Michkov actually spoke with reporters for the first time since early December, and it was worth paying attention to. Here’s a ton of quotes from PHLY Sports Charlie O’Connor, who posted them all on Twitter.

Matvei Michkov ahead of Wednesday’s season restart against the Washington Capitals

On the Tocchet relationship, he kept it simple. No bad blood, no conflict, just two people trying to win.

“Very common relationship between player and head coach. Everybody has the same goal — the coaches and players — to win. So we’ve been working that way.”

He didn’t call it a great relationship, but he shut down the idea that there’s some ongoing war happening behind closed doors.

Whether you take that at face value or read between the lines is up to you, but Matvei Michkov isn’t going to throw his coach under the bus publicly and you probably shouldn’t expect him to.

On the ice time and deployment, he was equally measured. “I’ll play as much time as I’ve been given, and I have to do my job. That’s the only thing I care about.”

Tocchet has also moved Matvei Michkov from his natural right wing to the left, which is a genuinely strange decision for a player whose entire offensive game is built around his right-side tendencies.

Matvei Michkov acknowledged it’s uncomfortable and that he can create a lot more on the right, but said he has to adapt. That’s the professional answer. It doesn’t mean it’s the right call from the coaching staff, but he’s not going to say that.

The more encouraging part of the conversation was what he did with the Olympic break. Last year after the 4 Nations he rested, came back fresh, and went on a massive run to close the season.

This year the break was longer and he approached it completely differently. He brought a personal trainer to the Dominican Republic and ran two-a-days for seven straight days. Gym in the morning, conditioning and stamina work after. Not exactly a beach vacation.

He was also pretty honest about where things went wrong this season. He didn’t touch the ice last summer, didn’t do any hockey-specific training for four months, and said flat out that it showed.

“If you take a four-months break, it can reflect your game. You have to concentrate on hockey all the time, and you cannot take even a month of break.”

That’s self-awareness. He knows what he did and he knows why this season has been harder than the last one.

29 points in 55 games from a 21-year-old is not a disaster by normal standards. But after watching him go for 26 goals and 63 points last year, normal standards don’t really apply here. With Matvei Michkov, the talent is obvious. The question is whether the work he put in during the break translates to the ice over the final 26 games.

Flyers are in Washington Wednesday night.

Join The Chase