Quick Hits: September 5, 2023
1) One week from tomorrow, Flyers prospects and rookie hopefuls will report officially to the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees for the start of Rookie Camp. The following week, on September 20, all players must report for the start of NHL Camp.
2) Rookie games: On September 15 (next Friday) and Sept. 16, the Flyers Rookies will play two games against the New York Rangers Rookies at the PPL Center in Allentown, PA. The first game (7:00 p.m. EDT next Friday) will be streamed but not televised. The second game (5:05 p.m. EDT next Saturday) will be on television in the Philadelphia area. Service Electric broadcaster Steve Degler will handle play-by-play duties on the TV feed.
2) Now that Labor Day is passed, the number of Flyers veteran players working out on and off ice at the FTC will start to increase significantly on a day-by-day basis. There's already been a handful of players doing so.
3) Flyers president of hockey operations told Philly Hockey Now's Chuck Bausman last week that the organization and unsigned restricted free agent Morgan Frost's agent, Darren Ferris (Quartexx Management), were getting close to an agreement on a new contract for the player. However, there were still details to work out on a new deal. This week will be a key week in that regard with the start of NHL camp two weeks away.
Frost and new Flyers teammate Sean Walker, a friend and offseason workout partner despite the two being four-plus years apart in age and having never previously played on the same team, have worked out together again this summer in Ontario.
3) Flyers goalie prospect Alexei Kolosov, who is on loan this season to KHL club Dinamo Minsk after signing an entry-level contract this summer with Philadelphia, notched a 26-save shutout victory for Dinamo on Monday against HC Vityaz. It is the third career KHL shutout for the 21-year-old Kolosov.
Kolosov backed up former Ottawa Senators goalie Dylan Ferguson on opening night this past Saturday. On Wednesday, Dinamo will play Kunlun Red Star Beijing at Arena Mytishchi in the Moscow suburbs.
4) Match TV reported today that Flyers prospect Matvei Michkov, the 7th overall selection of the 2023 NHL Entry Draft, would dress for SKA St. Petersburg's road game on Wednesday against Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. Michkov was a healthy scratch from head coach Roman Rotenberg's lineup in each of SKA's first two games of the regular season. Rotenberg said after Saturday's opener that Michkov would rotate into the lineup "soon" but only as the team's 13th forward (thereby receiving very limited ice time).
Hopefully, the player will see enough ice time and situational deployment to be put by SKA's self-appointed head coach into a position to succeed. Keep in mind that last season, after SKA loaned Michkov to HC Sochi (a weaker KHL club), the teenager posted nine goals and 20 points in 27 games. He also had a strong preseason for SKA this August in the games where he was actually given a chance to play.
Actually, during the preseason, Michhkov showed a lot of promise in moving from right wing to center before he was dropped down to 13th forward late in the preseason and moved back to wing. Michkov did NOT have an excessive volume of turnover or defensive miscues or whatever other imagined issues have been cited by critics. He had one rough period, and that was it.
I do not think Michkov's lack of playing team has anything to do with the Flyers per se and is most certainly not about the situation with CSKA goalie Ivan Fedotov. Rather, it seems more likely to me that it's a personality clash about
an oligarch's son with no professional playing or prior coaching experience trying to show a mega-talented but reputedly headstrong teenage player who is boss. Keep in mind that the 42-year-old Rotenberg is also SKA's general manager, president of hockey operations, chairman of the team's board of directors, runs team sponsor Gazprom and Gazprom bank, and is also the deputy chairman of the entire KHL. He's used to getting his way, all the time.
Teenage players (actually, even 20-year-olds, too) in the KHL often struggle to get ice time, but Michkov has been a prodigy in his young career. He showed last season while with Sochi that he could handle the KHL -- even thrive -- if given the ice time to do so. So there really is no reasonable doubt if Michkov is KHL-ready or even if he's already worthy of a regular spot on a top club.
I could be wrong, and I frankly hope so, because I want to see Michkov play as much as possible with other talented players around him. But where I think this is heading based on Rotenberg's deployment of Michkov both last year and this year: the 18-year-old will continue to play sparingly now that it's the regular season. Thereafter, he might be loaned to a VHL (minor league) club or a weaker KHL club. In other words, the same path as last season. Even Rotenberg realizes that Michkov is far too advanced at this point for the Russian junior league (MHL), which he's long since shown is no challenge for him.
Rotenberg may be arrogant, openly ambitious and cocksure, but he's not a dummy or a fool. He's a bright guy. I just question whether he cares about what's actually best for his players as opposed to asserting his own power and control. Mickhov (10 goals, 14 points in 12 VHL games last season) doesn't need any more minor league team. He doesn't need to be dispatched to a lesser KHL team to deserve a lineup spot. He belongs playing regularly right now for SKA, but that decision is beyond the player's control.
5) A quick word about Michkov's contract. It's been erroneously reported that Michkov signed a three-year extension with SKA, which is why he's contracted to the St. Petersburg team through the end of the 2025-26 season (when he'll be 21). In reality, SKA locked up Mickov in a
five-year contract back in 2020 when the player was 16 years old. It was already clear he was a prodigy. The contract has three years to run (including the 2023-24 campaign). I do not think there will be a problem in bringing Michkov over to North America when that contract expires. However, I also don't think it'll be a piece of cake to bring him over early despite Michkov himself pretty clearly wanting to come to the NHL as soon as possible. However, while everything in Russian hockey inevitably has political undertones (it's unavoidable, such as with CSKA Moscow sporting a uniform with the Putin-supporting "Z" symbol this past weekend), they are also transactional.
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