“Like a Vengeance Tour”: Rick Tocchet on Matvei Michkov being back on the ice after getting swept by the Hurricanes

The Flyers’ season has been over for four days. Matvei Michkov didn’t play in the final game. He was benched twice during the playoff run. His sophomore season was a rollercoaster of headlines, benchings, and a coaching relationship that generated more drama than any player-coach dynamic in the NHL this year. The kid had every reason to sulk, disappear, and not show his face around the facility until September.

Instead, he finished his media availability on Tuesday, told reporters he was heading to the ice, and went out and shot pucks. Tocchet called it a “vengeance tour” and said he loved it.

Matvei Michkov back on the ice.

Already putting the work in for next season! Matvei Michkov is wasting no time getting back on the ice. pic.twitter.com/2VAi9VYmOd

— Kendall Skalicky (@KendallSkalicky) May 13, 2026

Let’s Be Honest About This Season

Michkov needs this summer more than anyone on the roster.

Tocchet was hard on Michkov all year. We all watched it. The reduced ice time. The benchings. The public comments about conditioning and preparation. The scratches during the playoffs when the games mattered most. The majority of Flyers fans thought most of it was bullshit and I was right there with them.

The “out of shape” comments in mid-January were the ones that really didn’t make sense. You’re telling me a professional hockey player who has been playing games since October is out of shape in January?

That’s not how this works. When you’re an NHL player skating 15 to 20 minutes a night multiple times a week, you naturally get into game shape as the season progresses. The conditioning concerns might have been valid in September if Michkov didn’t have the best offseason preparation, but by January?

The kid had been playing professional hockey for three months. The shape thing doesn’t add up in the middle of the season and it felt like Tocchet was using it as cover for something else, whether that was Michkov’s buy-in to the system, his defensive effort, or just a coaching power play to establish who runs things.

Was Matvei Michkov unprepared for his sophomore campaign? Probably.

The numbers tell you that. He dropped from 26 goals and 63 points as a rookie to 20 goals and 51 points this year. The production declined. The consistency wasn’t there. He went through stretches where he was invisible on the ice and stretches where he looked like the most talented player in the building. The sophomore slump was real and Michkov would be the first to acknowledge that based on what he’s doing right now.

Matvei Michkov and Rick Tocchet Has Been a Problem All Year

A lot has been said about the Michkov-Tocchet dynamic and the majority of it hasn’t been good. The public benchings. The comments to the media about conditioning and effort. Danny Briere having to publicly address the “noise” around the relationship. Michkov doing an interview where he talked about understanding the coaches more, which is diplomatic speak for “we didn’t see eye to eye for most of the year and now we’re figuring it out.”

I don’t think Tocchet handled Michkov perfectly this season. Benching your most talented player twice in the playoffs when the team is getting swept is a decision that looks worse in hindsight even if the reasoning made sense in the moment. The Flyers needed more offense against Carolina. Michkov is their most offensively gifted player. He was in the press box. The Flyers scored 10 goals in their last seven games. Maybe having the guy who scored 20 goals this year in the lineup would have helped with that.

That said, I also don’t think Tocchet is the villain that some fans want him to be. He saw growth from Michkov after the Olympic break. He praised the kid’s competitiveness from the first day of training camp. He called him “a big spoke” in the wheel and said the organization has the tools to develop him into something special. The relationship isn’t broken beyond repair. It’s a young player and a demanding coach figuring each other out in real time. That process is messy and uncomfortable but it doesn’t mean it won’t produce results.

The Good News Is That Michkov Gets It

The best thing to come out of the end-of-season pressers is that Michkov is clearly self-aware enough to know this year wasn’t where he wanted to be. He’s not making excuses. He’s not pointing fingers at the coaching staff. He’s not sulking about the benchings. He finished his media session and went straight to the ice. He already has plans for the summer. Separation speed. His shot. The areas where he can improve as a 21-year-old winger who still has a massive ceiling.

Tocchet said “every player should have some kind of motivation in their head to prove anybody wrong” and that Michkov already has that fire. The kid was benched in the playoffs, watched the season end from the press box, and responded by being back on the ice before anyone else. That’s not a player who has checked out. That’s a player who is pissed off and channeling it in the right direction.

The Revenge Narrative Is All We Can Ask For Right Now

At the very least, Matvei Michkov and Tocchet are now focused on the same thing. A bounce-back year. A vengeance tour. Whatever you want to call it, the player and the coach are publicly aligned on the idea that year three needs to be significantly better than year two. That’s progress from where the relationship appeared to be in January when the conditioning comments were flying and the ice time was getting cut.

The Flyers need Michkov to be a dominant offensive player if this team is going to take the next step. They won a round and got swept in the second. The offense dried up at the worst possible time. Michkov taking a leap from 51 points to 70 or 80 changes the ceiling of this entire roster. The talent is there. The competitiveness has never been questioned. The relationship with the coaching staff appears to be in a better place than it was three months ago.

Matvei Michkov on the ice shooting pucks the day after the season ended. Tocchet calling it a vengeance tour. The two of them publicly on the same page heading into the offseason. Right now, that’s all we can ask for. If the summer goes the way both of them seem to want it to go, year three is going to look very different.

Let the vengeance tour begin.

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