John Tortorella's Handling of Matvei Michkov sets Social Media Ablaze, But the Coach is Doing the Right Thing

Matvei Michkov is not Sidney Crosby. He's not Connor McDavid. He's not Alexander Ovechkin.

I know it seems like I decided to be Captain Obvious this morning, but a sizeable portion of Flyers fans need to be constantly reminded of those facts. 

Is Michkov a high-end talent who is going to be one of the most important parts of the Flyers future success? Yes. 

Is he a generational talent who takes over the league by storm as a teenager and never looks back? No. 

It's understandable why Philadelphia hockey fans blur the two together. The team has been bereft of such a homegrown star-caliber prospect for more than 30 years. Not since Eric Lindros forced the Quebec Nordiques to trade him, demanding before they even selected him first overall in the draft that he would never play there, have the Flyers had a prospect that came with so much promise. 

The problem is deciding just how much promise that should be - and when that promise becomes reality. 

Progression is never linear for any prospect, especially one who enters the league before they are legally allowed to have a postgame beer with their teammates, which is why it was important to temper expectations for a player like Michkov, who arrived two years sooner than expected for the Flyers this season. 

And the team has done a good job of that internally. They have to manage him a little differently than most young players. They have high expectations for him as well, but they are also keenly aware of the process it takes for a player to reach his potential and how it's different for each individual.

Then there's the communication aspect of things. To his credit, Michkov is immersing himself in learning English so he can better assimilate to living and playing in North America. But there are still going to be hurdles there. The Flyers have shown great patience with him on that front. They haven't thrown too much at him at once. They want him to just go out there and be himself, and add little nuggets along the way as he learns the league a little bit more each day. 

But there's a reason teams don't always want young players playing at the NHL level too soon. The NHL is not a developmental league. It's the best league in the world. You need to have a baseline performance level to play in it regularly. If you dip below that baseline for too long, you are better off being shipped down to the AHL to refine your game and once you get back to the baseline, or ahead of it, you get another opportunity with the big club.

But because of Michkov's status as a potential future star in the league, he's going to be treated differently. When he dips below his baseline, he's going to see his minutes get cut. He may see himself benched for a period at a time. Hell, he may even be a scratch for a game or two. 

We've already seen it happen in just his first three months in the NHL. 

And here's the thing - it's the right thing to do. 

You wouldn't know that if you took a stroll through Flyers social media during yesterday's game after Flyers coach John Tortorella benched Michkov for the entirety of the third period in a 3-1 win over Anaheim. Here's just a small sampling:

its really awesome that michkov can develop into the superstar this franchise needs him to be from the bench. The only flyer with less TOI is garnett hathaway. TORTORELLA IS ASS AND IM TIRED OF IT

— kevin (@flyersphan28) December 28, 2024

And there's plenty more where that came from. Go to your favorite social media channel and type "Torts Michkov" into the search bar and you'll have hours of good fun. 

Here's the thing though, every one of these fans has little to no idea what's actually going on with the player, the coach and the plan to develop a young superstar. 

And I don't say that to be offensive to fans. Sure, you want to watch Michkov play. We all do. I include myself in the same cohort from the perspective of what interests me about the Flyers as a viewer of their games. 

But if a young player is under water, is it best to let him drown? Or is it better to throw him a life preserver so that he can continue to get better? 

Here's Torts after the game:

Torts met with the media following today's 3-1 win in Anaheim. #PHIvsANA | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/uSwYwR3XET

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) December 29, 2024

"It's just been a struggle," he said. "His energy. Everything about his game right nbow. I think the schedule has kind of caught up with him. It's going to happen. We're going to try to help him. If I have to take him out or miss some time in periods, he's going to. In the big picture, we just want to try to help him get his energy back."

Take note - this is not punitive. This is not Torts benching a player for mistakes made on the ice. This is not him lashing out at Michkov for getting too cute, or not backchecking, or anything structure-related. This is a 20-year old playing at a pace he never has before and rather than let him get snowed over, Tortorella is going to give him a chance to refresh.

Remember, Michkov's previous career high in games played in a season was 47 - last year in the KHL, where the season starts in September and ends in March. So, 47 games in seven months, or less than seven games a month.

Michkov has already played 34 games in the NHL (and been scratched for two) - in 10 weeks. 

Captain Sean Couturier told us on the Snow the Goalie podcast at the start of the season that he had to re-train his body to remember what the rigors of an 82-game NHL schedule is like after not playing for nearly two years. Now, imagine a kid, who has never experienced what that feels like on his body, trying to figure it out in the moment. 

Torts is right, hitting the wall is going to happen. So, finding a way to help Michkov not to constantly bang into that same wall in the same season is important - and the best path to that is taking away ice time. 

Michkov's play has dipped considerably in December. It's not just a seven-game point drought either. You can go back as far as the Black Friday game against the New York Rangers and see when he started to slip off his game. Sure, he's had some moments in between that kind of masked the slow slip in energy, but it's definitely exacerbated itself in these past seven games - in which he's a minus-11. 

I get the reason fans feel like this is one of Tortorella's mind games with a player, too. We've seen that drama on several stages in his storied career. And I don't always agree with Torts when he pulls out these benching/scratching tactics. And that's part of the beauty of the dichotomy between what he does, what I do, and what you do as a fan. We can all have different opinions, for sure. And we can't all always be right. Someone has to be wrong somewhere. 

But in this case, it's not the coach. 

The one thing everyone can agree on about Tortorella is he's going to give you blunt and honest answers. When a player is not playing well enough, he will tell you. When a player is being scratched for poor decisions, or not living up to the standard, he'll tell you. When it's something within the player's control, he'll tell you. But when his decisions are being made to protect a player, he'll tell you that too. 

insane that people can hear tortorella say “he’s having trouble with the schedule. it’s catching up with him” etc and think torts benching/scratching/etc michkov is a punishment of some kind or unwarranted.

— romeo j. (@danmori630) December 29, 2024

He explained the rationale - a similar one - for sending Emil Andrae back down to Lehigh Valley in the AHL before Christmas. There was some negative reaction to that as well, but he basically said that Andrae, after going good for awhile, suddenly went off a cliff and was struggling to get back to that baseline we talked about earlier. The difference is, Andrae doesn't come with the promise and star potential of Michkov. So, Andrae gets sents down to work on it. Michkov just gets to reset while staying with the big club. 

Honestly, it's good coaching. You just have to take off the fan blinders to see it.