32 Teams, 32 Players: Matvei Michkov

The Philadelphia Flyers might have a potential superstar here as long as they let him play to his strengths right away.

Now that the 2024-25 NHL season has arrived we are going to highlight one player on each team that stands out for the season. What kind of player? Well, a player that could make a difference, be an X-factor, be on the verge of a breakout, or just simply be a player under the microscope and needing to have a big season.

Basically — which player do I think is the most fas3cinating on each team.

We are not going in any particularly order and continue today with Matvei Michkov of the Philadelphia Flyers.

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Now it is time for the Philadelphia Flyers rebuild to get serious and take a real, meaningful step forward. They took a nice step forward in 2023-24 and overachieved for most of the season, stayed in the playoff race longer than anybody expected, and then just faded down the stretch.

They defended well for most of the season. They had good underlying numbers. They played hard. They were aggressive on the counter-attack. They were, at times, kind of fun to watch.

The biggest thing that held them back was a lack of impact offensive talent throughout the lineup.

The debut of 2023 first-round pick Matvei Michkov is the type of thing that can hopefully change that.

The Flyers had the good fortune of Michkov falling right into their laps with the No. 7 overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft when he was probably one of the two or three most talented players in the entire class. But because NHL teams are always hesitant to take Russian prospects over fear of how long it will take for them to come over, he just kept slipping down the board.

The Flyers were not going to repeat the mistake of everybody else in front of them and ended up with a potential superstar.

He ended up making the jump over to North America far sooner than anybody expected, and has already been a standout in the Flyers’ preseason and early regular season games.

The big intrigue with Michkov is not necessarily his talent level, but what the Flyers — and more specifically, head coach John Tortorella — allow him to be.

Let’s talk about it.