Philadelphia Flyers News & Rumors: Michkov Drama Worsens, Zegras Hot, Vladar vs. Ersson & More

Hello everybody and welcome into another Flyers news and rumors here at the Hockey Writers. I’m your host Matthew Ztor as always joined in by Justin Gro who covers the Flyers here at the site. Uh Justin, how’s it going? Um it’s kind of similar vibes to the last time we did this about a week ago. Uh just I it feels like nothing’s changed. It feels like and we’ll get into it. the Meechov stuff we talked about is getting worse. Um, just kind of the same storylines really. Well, let’s let’s begin there because it hasn’t gotten any better like we talked about. Mishkov benched again. His ice time’s down. He’s not scoring. He’s not producing. And the relationship with him and it doesn’t seem to be I I don’t know like what do you think about all this? I mean, why they fired Tortoella was partly because of this and now they just hire a new coach. It just seems to be the same problems going on again. Well, I think the idea, and don’t quote me on it, but I think the organization liked the idea of Tordella. They just don’t like the antics of it, the getting into it with Cam York, getting into it with Shan Couturier. Taka doesn’t do that. but everything else kind of similar to Tortoella. So I do think they like that aspect of Tors and so that’s kind of continuing I guess if you want to look at it that way. Overall there’s nothing really to truly worry about yet. I don’t think there are relationship between Tit and Mechov. I don’t think it’s I don’t think it’s souring or anything. There’s no indication to suggest that. But you look at it from an outside lens and you put yourself in that position. Mishkov has already dealt with this really his whole professional career. Going back to the KHL, he dealt with this stuff. Going back to his first year under Tortoella, he dealt with the benchings and um the inconsistencies. But now it’s really amplified, I think. Um one goal in five games, one point. He’s been benched several times and it’s just not it’s this hasn’t been great so far. This is really the worst we’ve seen of Meechov at the NHL level at least. And under a new coach, it can be worrying a bit, especially when he’s getting benched. If it continues, it’s fair to be like kind of panicky about it. I don’t think I would yet. I would like him to get more opportunities even though the Flyers are kind of winning games or two two and one after a very very hard schedule. You can understand the perspective that Tak wants to win games and put his best guys out there. That’s what that was his perspective on it. Mhm. But at the end of the day, you need your star players to start producing or else you’re not going to win because they’ve really been relying on Dan Vadar’s ex excellence kind of out of the blue. I don’t think it’s very sustainable. He is playing basically at a Vzna level right now. Yeah, it’s three games, but you you get the point there. He’s playing very well. And if Mishkov and Kknne, both guys are kind of struggling right now, both guys are on the same line right now, they have been for the past few games. If they don’t figure it out, the Flyers are going to start losing games. Uh they can’t rely on this goalending, on this depth scoring to sustain itself forever. So, a little worrying as a fan. Maybe as from an outside perspective, it’s too early to panic, but definitely as a fan, it’s like I don’t know. It’s a little worrying. Well, especially how Mitkov had such a good season last season, too, right? And you’d hope that it just continue him keeps getting better. And I mean, it is very early. It can turn around like that within a week all of a sudden he’s scoring and it’s all good. So, we’ll see. Hopefully, that happens next week. We’re not talking about this again. All right. Well, there is someone that is on a a pretty good streak right now, and that’s Trevor Ziggress. He’s on a four-ame point streak, newcomer to the Flyers, of course. He’s playing kind of shifting between center and wing so far, which is basically what he did in Anaheim. Uh what do you think of his game? Uh so far here, it’s been so far everything I’ve kind of expected. He is playing on the wing, which I did not expect. He is playing technically on the third line which I did not expect. But everything that I thought of Trevor Ziggress I’m seeing out of Trevor Ziggress. He is very much still a very talented player, a player who can drive play, carry the puck. He can do so many great things. And I think he got a bad rap a bit in Anaheim. I don’t think he deserved some of the disrespect he got. He’s a very good player and the Flyers got him for very cheap. And if he keeps doing what he’s doing now, he has four assists the last four games, an assist each game. If that continues, I don’t think they’re going to have a very hard decision when it comes to his extension. He is a restricted free agent in the off season. If it didn’t go well or if it doesn’t go well, they’ll just let him go. But if it does go well, which it is right now, I think they give him maybe a long-term contract. Very possible. So, keeping an eye out on that. I hope he’s a long-term piece to the puzzle. Only 24 years old. So, yeah, room to grow from here. He is very young still. He’s got got quite a bit of potential still in his game. And we’ve seen, of course, his creativity over his first few years in Anaheim, especially his rookie season, I believe, what he was kind of on the highlight reel almost every day. So, yeah, we’ll we’ll see if he can continue what he’s doing in Philadelphia so far. All right. Well, you mentioned the goalending I and I mean, we weren’t expecting on the season preview, we’re saying Vladar going to be a good backup. I don’t even know if we were talking about a 1A 1B thing. Um, but he’s looking like he could be the starter. Um, like you say, not maybe not sustainable, but it seems like he’s starting to pull ahead as the guy that you’re they’re going to go with more so than Ersen. Uh, what do you think about the goalending so far? The Flyers have to this point maintained a true split between the two. I believe Vladar started the first game, then it was Eri. That’s how it’s been. And maybe that continues, but I think it will it could get to a point if this kind of trend continues where Lar is playing as well as he has been stealing the Flyers games, he’s going to be the starter until Eri proves or LAR proves that that’s not a good model. Again, it’s not sustainable. The I believe over 930 save percentage he has, that’s not sustainable for anybody. That’s not sustainable for Hellbook or anybody in the league. So, obviously that’s going to go down. However, I do think based on what I’m seeing that he could be the Flyer starter and actually be a pretty decent one, a guy you can kind of rely on. And that that’s good for Ersen, too. I think um having that true backup role, which he hasn’t had. He’s been the more than one a starter, kind of a full-time starter basically the last couple seasons. I think he was kind of always best suited to be a backup. And if that’s the case, maybe he can be a good one. But we’ll see how they approach this. If they’ll continue with the one guy, the other guy, one guy, the other guy, or if they just abandon it. Vadar’s the guy, and he will start when they need to win a game. Well, Vidar hasn’t gotten really the opportunity to carry a team as a starter yet. Uh behind Dustin Wolf, of course, last season. uh didn’t play a ton and then uh now he gets the opportunity here and maybe that’s what he needed an opportunity to get uh a bunch of starts and maybe get on a roll for it and that’s why he left Calgary because he wanted to have a better opportunity um and looks like he might get it in Philadelphia. So, we’ll see if he can continue that and maybe become the starter as as time goes on. All right. Well, uh it was a couple new topics in this uh this video, but uh you know, Meechov thing is still going to be something until it isn’t. Um but we’ll we’ll see if it continues for next week. But make sure you’re checking out everything.com of all the other videos on our YouTube channel for all the other news and rumors we got out and uh everything else in our substacks as well. Until our next one, we’ll see you next time.

In this edition of the Philadelphia Flyers News & Rumors rundown, Matthew Zator and Justin Giampietro discuss the ongoing Matvei Michkov drama, Trevor Zegras’ four-game point streak, the increasing gap between Dan Vladar and Samuel Ersson for the starting role, and more.

Check out Justin’s writing – https://thehockeywriters.com/author/jgiampietro/

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