Photo Courtesy of Philadelphia Flyers PR
There’s been a variety of news coming out surrounding Matvei Michkov and his potential move to the NHL over the last month.
Primarily, these reports regarding Michkov have entertained the possibility of the 2023 seventh overall draft pick terminating his KHL contract with SKA St. Petersburg and making his way to the Philadelphia Flyers as early as the 2024-25 NHL season.
When analyzing these reports and the past few seasons Michkov has experienced with SKA, all signs point to Michkov joining the Flyers in my opinion.
The most important aspect of this whole situation is Michkov’s relationship with Roman Rotenberg. Interestingly enough, Michkov actually played 13 games in the KHL for SKA as a 16-year-old and registered 5 points in 13 games played.
But the fascinating part is that Michkov played those 13 games under head coach Valeri Bragin during the 2021-22 season in the KHL. In January of 2022 Valeri Bragin was replaced by Roman Rotenberg as the head coach of the franchise.
From that point onwards Michkov only played four regular season games for SKA St. Petersburg and the winger received minimal usage. In those four games played Michkov’s time on ice was listed as follows:
-SKA v Admiral, September 28th, 2022. Michkov plays, 2:06 TOI.
-SKA v Admiral, November 8th, 2022. Michkov plays, 1:35 TOI.
-SKA v Amur, November 10, 2022. Michkov plays, 5:53 TOI.
-SKA v Torpedo, September 6th, 2023. Michkov plays, 6:12 TOI.
During the 13 game stretch in which Michkov suited up for SKA under Valeri Bragin, he received over 10 minutes of time on ice in three games as a 16-year-old.
In the final ten games he played for SKA in 2021-2022 Michkov averaged between six and nine minutes of ice time per game.
Most notably, Michkov was not loaned out to another club as a 16-year-old and played for SKA St. Petersburg exclusively.
Is it just a coincidence that as soon as Roman Rotenberg was named the head coach of SKA, Michkov’s ice time decreased significantly and the forward was loaned out to HC Sochi for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 KHL seasons?
Or has there been a fractured relationship between Rotenberg and Michkov, that has resulted in the talented winger being loaned to HC Sochi for the past two KHL seasons.
Obviously there’s no concrete evidence of the above. Although the information presented certainly infers that to be the case (when reading between the lines). Especially considering how productive Michkov has been over his last two seasons playing for HC Sochi.
In 74 games played with Sochi the last two campaigns Michkov scored 61 points. It’s not as though he couldn’t have contributed to SKA offensively based on the points produced for a much inferior team in Sochi. That scoring pace would have cemented Michkov as one of SKA’s most offensively productive players over the past two seasons.
The straw that may have broken the camel’s back in this whole scenario is Michkov being left off the Russian National Team for the Liga Stavok Big National Team tour by Roman Rotenberg. When the 19-year old likely would have been one of the top forwards on the roster.
There certainly appears to be a trend when assessing how Rotenberg has treated Matvei Michkov over the past few seasons. It appears as though the coach has continually left the winger off his rosters.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing could occur if Michkov remained under contract with SKA next season. However, it wouldn’t be out of the question when analyzing the way Rotenberg has handled Michkov’s usage in the past.
As a result, this could be the exact reason why Michkov and his agent are looking to get out of his contract with SKA St. Petersburg two seasons early.
Ultimately, time will tell if and when Matvei Michkov arrives in Philadelphia and signs his entry level deal.
After examining Michkov’s relationship with Rotenberg and the fact the head coach has not denied any of the contract termination rumors, it seems likely Michkov may indeed become a Philadelphia Flyer next season.
Based on the initial interview with SKA’s president Alexander Medvedev it was stated a decision should be made on whether Michkov will be granted the ability to terminate his contract with SKA St. Petersburg by the end of June. I’d imagine that timeline is still an accurate one.
