Quick Hits: September 3, 2023
1) The opening weekend of the KHL regular season was a tough one from the standpoint of the Philadelphia Flyers' interests in drafted/contracted players in the league. I will attempt to put things in context. From an immediate standpoint, these are just blips on a radar screen. In the bigger picture, there are situations worth monitoring as they develop, not only from a Flyers point of view but also the wider context of the today's complicated NHL/KHL realities.
2) Matvei Michkov, the seventh overall pick of the 2023 NHL Entry Draft, was a healthy scratch for SKA St. Petersburg in Saturday's 2-1 opening day road win against Dynamo Moscow (not to be confused with Belarus-based KHL team Dinamo Minsk).
Afterwards, SKA head coach/general manager/board of directors' chairman/president of hockey operations Roman Rotenberg said that the 18-year-old Michkov would have to earn his way into the SKA lineup but, in upcoming games, would rotate in as the team's 13th forward (likely seeing only a couple of shifts per period).
It is hardly unusual for teenage players in the KHL to have trouble getting ice time regardless of their talent level or future NHL upside. In fact, it's the norm.
However, it must be said here that Michkov had a strong preseason on the whole -- even in moving to center for the majority of his preseason outings. It wasn't just that Michov posted at least one point in almost every game (including a first period goal in a game where he only had a single shift in the period). He was also excellent on the forecheck. He backchecked diligently and competed for the puck. He had one rough period, with a couple of turnovers, and his ice time was minimal in the last few games before the season but SKA as a team was far more inconsistent from period to period during the exhibition slate than the player was individually even in his least impressive outing."
This blog is neither the ideal forum nor is it the right time to try to explain in deep detail the workings of Russian hockey or Russian national and international politics. The key takeaway is that these institutions are deeply intertwined. The KHL, its most prominent clubs, and the Russian national team are virtually one and the same with president Vladimir Putin and the supporting oligarchy. For these reasons, it's not always possible to discuss the KHL on a "hockey-only" basis because things run quite differently in Russian hockey than they do in most every other league in the world. It's just the reality.
Michkov is a strong-willed young man on and off the ice, passionate about the game and his craft but also perhaps not the easiest player for coaches to shape to their will. In those regards, he is apparently not all that different than Jaromir Jagr was at the same age. Rotenberg, meanwhile, is someone who is used to getting his way. Young, powerful and ultra self-confident to the brink of cockiness, there's always the potential for a volatile relationship when his managerial style is faced with a player of Michkov's combined talent and self-assertiveness.
Again, it's hard to explain the dynamic that's at play here in simple hockey terms. A strong-willed coach trying to establish control over a young, equally strong-willed player is the most universal way to describe it. But it's more complicated than that in Russian hockey.
Rotenberg is
not your typical professional head coach nor a run-of-the-mill
sports team executive. He's self-confident to the point of cocky arrogance. Highly educated, multilingual and extremely ambitious, the 42-year-old entrepreneur is the vice president of the Gazprom oil and gas company and a member of the KHL Board of Directors (most recently as the league's deputy chairman). He also holds controlling interest in sports venue ownership and marketing, broadcast/media and sports nutrition ventures.
Rotenberg is also athletically inclined himself. He plays for the SKA Alumni team and, during the preseason this August, put himself in SKA's lineup for a televised 3-on-3 mini-tournament (Michkov was named tourney MVP) although he's never been a professional hockey player. Rotenberg played until his mid-teens and has bonafide hockey ability above that of a typical recreational player, but getting a college education at the European Business School in London was his number one priority. He's a dual Russian/Finnish citizen (his mother is Finnish and his father is of Russian Jewish heritage). Like many prominent figures in the Russia's most powerful inner circle. Rotenberg is multi-lingual. He's fluent in Finnish and English as well as Russian. The bottom line is that he's a force to be reckoned with and someone with whom the Flyers and other NHL teams have no choice but to deal when it comes to their KHL-affiliated prospects. It's an unavoidable part of the process.
In the short term, it's possible that SKA could loan Michkov to another KHL team -- he spent the second half of last season with HC Sochi, for whom he excelled despite the team itself not being one of the better clubs in the league. He could also be loaned to a VHL (minor league) club or sent back to the MHL (junior league), but even Rotenberg surely realizes Michkov is far too advanced for MHL hockey at this point. Alternatively, he could be slow-cooked for SKA as the 13th/14th forward. Those decisions are in Rotenberg's hands.
Ultimately, as far as the Philadelphia Flyers are concerned, all that matters is Michkov's continued development and then bringing him to North America when that becomes possible. He is under contract to SKA through the 2025-26 season.
3) On Friday, the KHL, CSKA Moscow and goaltender Ivan Fedotov directly defied Fedotov's four-month suspension by the IIHF for signing with CSKA while under a valid contract with the Flyers. Fedotov started, and lost, 5-2, against Ak Bars Kazan. He did make an excellent save on a penalty shot but, in general, the rust showed from missing a year of hockey after he was conscripted into the Russian military last summer.
The IIHF responded,
on Saturday, albeit in weak fashion. The IIHF issued CSKA a fine of 5,000 Swiss Francs and threated to have the IIHF Disciplinary committee issue additional sanctions to CSKA (currently banned from international transfers, including NHL-to-KHL, for one calendar year) and Fedotov if he continues to play. The odds of sudden compliance by CSKA and Fedotov's release to come to Philadelphia are miniscule at best.
CSKA is back in action on Sunday, hosting Admiral Vladivostok. CSKA and the KHL, from all appearances, have no intention, of changing course with Fedotov.
Reportedly, Fedotov was not in the CSKA locker room after the opening game. This, of course, was done to make him unavailable for interviews. The player himself, at a press conference held several weeks ago, said only that he simply wants to play hockey in 2023-24 and that he'd comply with whatever the IIHF ruled. That was before the IIHF ruled in the Flyers' favor and CKSA, the KHL and, finally, the Russian Ice Hockey Federation vowed not to comply with the ruling.
In the meantime, the Flyers can't worry about whether Fedotov attends training camp in Voorhees or if he ever comes to play in North America at all. They have to prepare for the 2023-24 NHL season, and Fedotov's status does not materially affect the plan at this point (especially after he didn't play a minute of pro hockey in any league last year, or even have access to proper workout facilities until the middle of this summer).
4) The Fedotov situation, in reality, has very little to do with the Philadelphia Flyers beyond the fact that the Flyers happen to be the other team involved in the current situation. It's not even about Fedotov. It's really about the NHL vs. KHL and each league respecting valid contracts (including tolled contracts) from the other league, in lieu of a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
For practical reasons, the NHL does not want a poaching war with the KHL. The MOU was canceled by the NHL a year ago due to the war in Ukraine. However, both the NHL and KHL continued to abide by the terms of the MOU until the KHL took the aggressive step of refusing to recognize Fedotov's tolled Flyers contract as valid for 2023-24. In the big picture, what happens next and in the future remains to be seen.
Both the Russian Ice Hockey Federation and the KHL have stood behind CSKA in this matter. Russia is currently banned from all IIHF-sanctioned international competitions, including the World Championships, World Junior and Under-18 Worlds. The sanctions are related to Russia's invasion and ongoing war with Ukraine.
However, for defiance of IIHF authority, the Federation has the option of extending Russia's international hockey ban over and beyond the situation in Ukraine. What practical effect that would have is questionable, since the war in Ukraine is unlikely to end in the near future.
Could the IIHF sanction the KHL as a whole? Technically, the IIHF only has direct authority over its member national federations. However, the IIHF does have legal oversight in terms if international transfers (hence, the ban on international transfer to CSKA). Overseas, due to the situation in Ukraine, there has been noise about some national federations -- Czechia, for one -- banning players of that nationality from going to the KHL under threat of suspensions from the national team. However, that's proven easier said that done since there's no consensus on that issue. The ball is back in the IIHF's court to show it can effectively enforce its policies if the Russian Federation and KHL will not abide by them.
As such, this is not a Flyers-specific issue at its core. I do feel bad for Fedotov, though, because it's something in which he's caught in the middle for the second straight season. It's also not a player vs. team or even a team vs. team matter. it's NHL vs. KHL and KHL/ Russian federation vs. IIHF. The Flyers can only work within and work around what they're in position to manage. Right now, that's not much.
5) On Saturday, Dinamo Minsk won its opening game, 5-4 in overtime, on the road against Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk. Prior to the game, Dinamo announced that former Ottawa Senators goalie Dylan Ferguson would get the start in net for the opener. Flyers prospect Alexei Kolosov dressed as Dinamo's backup goalie.
Ferguson, who will turn 25 later this month, has primarily played at the American Hockey League and ECHL levels in the Vegas Golden Knights and Senators organizations. This past aseason, he made two NHL starts for Ottawa. A free agent this summer, Ferguson decided to go overseas and sign with Belarus-based Dinamo. Ferguson was just so-so in his KHL debut on Saturday, stopping 26 of 30 shots.
This summer, the Flyers signed 21-year-old goalie prospect Kolosov to an entry-level contract. Philadelphia then loaned him back to Dinamo for the 2023-24 season (which will still use up the first year of his entry-level deal for NHL purposes under the Collective Bargaining Agreement). The understanding is that Kolosov will be allowed to come to North America to join the Flyers or the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms in 2024-25.
Last season, Kolosov appeared in 42 of Dinamo's 68 regular season games. He also started all three of the club's playoff games before they were eliminated in the first round.
With Ferguson signing with Minsk this offseason, 23-year-old Konstantin Shostak (Kolosov's goaltending partner last season) joined Severstal Cherepovets this offseason. He started, and lost, the team's opener on Saturday.
From a Flyers standpoint, the goal for this season as related to Kolosov is for the goalie to see a lot of playing time and continue his development before he comes to North America. Competing for playing time with a still-young former AHL/NHL goalie isn't a bad thing in and of itself. There's only been one game played so far. That said, as the team's incumbent No. 1 goalie, it's a little disappointing that Kolosov didn't get tabbed to start the opener.
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