flyers daily talking about the “overstatement” on michkov regression. if you disagree, why?

13 comments

1. Any perceived “regression” by Mich is 💯 overstated. The kid just doesn’t magically and completely lose his immense talent and skills.

   What’s NOT overstated, though, is Tocchet’s absolute mismanagement of him and his holding a grudge against Michkov like some aging, boomer, passive-aggressive parent.

   Any perceived “regression” by Mich starts with the coaching staff and FO and how his season has been managed. Not on RW, little PP time, no use in 3v3, ToI minutes like a fourth liner.

   The Flyers are not that good, won’t make the playoffs, the coaching staff are developing Mich horribly. These things are not overstated/stated enough.

2. It is overstated. The kid is getting less mins. Less Min = less production. He is on pace to still finish with 40+ points which is high for the mins he is getting. A 3rd line players ceiling is 40 points. With more mins he would be closer to a pace matching last seasons production. Michkov is progressing fine.

3. I agree with most of the Michkov criticism. The discussion in Flyers media is fine. The issue is having national pundits calling Flyers fans morons and a coach that can’t keep his mouth shut to the media so now all of this is under a microscope.

   Tocchet came in to Vancouver and they got to say goodbye to Kuzmenko, Miller (who they chose to keep over Horvat), EP40s confidence, and then Tocchet and Hughes bailed. Where’s the culture in that?

   Between the gambling, blowing up the Canucks, potential tampering with the Flyers… drama follows Tocchet everywhere.

   Michkov needs coaching and we had one in house. Not the first thing this management group let slip away.

4. I think people still don’t really understand where the fans are coming from. there are wild lunatics amongst the fire Tocchet crowd, just like any other group anywhere in the world. I think the part the media often seems to skip on, whether purposely or not, is that michkovs deployment this year is directly parallel to the organizations overall failure to put a contending team together on a yearly basis. most reasonable people would understand minutes being cut if he comes in out of shape, most people understand when they’re explained that the move to the left side is about shielding Meech from being attacked on his backhand from a defender when he’s trying to get the puck out the zone. people would understand the want to instill a more defensive oriented approach to a guy who’s all gas no brakes because keeping the puck out is just as important. people get that he’s slow as snail, in shape or not and he needs to become a considerably better skater if he wants to reach his ceiling.

   What the media doesn’t seem to get is that this shit is the same old song and dance we’ve been sold for nearly two decades. They have one cup final run that was very clearly an anomaly hard carried by one of the greatest defenseman to every play the game, just like the 06 oilers squad prongs did it with.

   It’s not that people are frustrated with trying to mold a purely offensive skilled winger into a more 200 ft sound player. It’s that they’ve been doing “shit like this” for lack of a better description (my work break is almost over) since Lindros left and they have nothing tangible to show for it. We see the signs and we’re worried it’s going to happen to the kid who has the best chance since Lindros of single handedly taking us out of this miserable stretch of mediocrity we have been on.

5. Jason Myrtetus does a great job on Flyers Daily having his own opinion yet staying as positive as he can with this team. He is not just stating Flyers propaganda. With that said, their main want for the remainder of the season is for Michkov to be placed on PP1 & see more offensive opportunities. I couldn’t agree more, this is absolutely what needs to happen and it is a shame that he has been kind of buried on the depth chart. This is especially worrisome considering Foerster is out. I am not sure where they expected the offensive production to come from. They are kind of lucky TK is on fire or it would really be rough.

6. So I’m confused. If they’re comparing this season and last and saying the numbers tend to be comparable or in some cases better this year with him on the left side, doesn’t that show that MM is playing just as well if not slightly better? Based on the comparisons they’re showing… the data.

   So my confusion then is why is Tocchet playing him less, demote him from PP1 to to PP2, demote him from first line to 3rd line, give him 3rd/4th line minutes, don’t put him in close situation games or overtime (especially when they need a goal), and the only time he’s given significant ice time is when they’re up or down by a lot? According this the data they’re showing, MM is the same or slightly better in most stats they’re showing that are of significance to playing left or right side. So what’s the reason Tocchet isn’t utilizing him. If anything, he should be throwing him out more to show he’s doing the right thing in playing him on the left.

7. I disagree with it, if you break Michkov’s rookie season down you can establish three pretty significant sections. First 27 games: 28p, Second 27 games: 7p, Final 26 games: 26p.

   The raw production at this exact point in time doesn’t look so far off, but when you dive into the splits it tells a much different story. Last season had two large stretches of point per game play with a massive dry spell in the middle that was (correctly IMO) chalked up to hitting a wall.

   We can debate the factors all we want, but if we’re simplifying the seasons down to the raw production I think there’s a big difference because he hasn’t had those long stretches of contributing.

8. I think that the general drama is overblown. There’s room to be concerned, particularly about the Tocchet/Michkov stuff, but we aren’t at a point of “He wants out”, we aren’t at a point of “His development is ruined”, and we aren’t at a point of “We must fire Tocchet if we want to keep Michkov”.

   Michkov was pretty clearly out of shape. It wasn’t obvious in camp, but it was SUPER obvious when the games started. Him getting less ice time then totally made sense. At this point, I think I can get “He’s not as fit as the guys who came to camp in shape, but he’s no longer *out of shape*”, so he shouldn’t be getting 10 minutes of ice time anymore, particularly when he’s actually having a good night. If he can finish the season strong after the break, then the year can still be ended on a fairly positive note, since the solution then simply becomes “He has a strong summer” and he’s magically back on track.

   IMO it’s understandable that Tocchet would be upset that one of his supposedly top guys would show up out of shape and then be invisible for the first half of the season. My issues with him (Which again, aren’t deal breakers, just stuff I want him to stop doing) are the occasional comments has to stop, and he has to use Michkov more even if he thinks it will cause the Flyers to lose games. At this point, while I think that the camp stuff plays into it, I think that Tocchet just doesn’t trust Michkov defensively, and so never puts him out when there’s a lead to defend (And thus why Michkov also doesn’t go out during OT). I can’t disagree with the defensive issues because I’ve seen some breakdowns from Michkov myself, but this is where the part about playing young guys during a rebuild comes in.

   As a side note, I just want to talk about Flyers fans online, and more specifically on Twitter. r/Flyers is overall fine, like there’s guys that clearly wanted a tank and are understandably frustrated at the issues they see with rebuilding this way, and there’s guys that are happy we can see progress rather than “Lose 82 games a year until you don’t”. The subreddit might get negative after a loss, but again it’s understandable frustration. Flyers twitter meanwhile has become insane, since it feels like some accounts are like 3 small steps away from “We’ll show up to Rick Tocchet’s house armed”. I can get why people would be mad, especially when Tocchet makes a dumb comment about Michkov, but some of the stuff I see feels like it’s getting performative just to get attention. Like the Tocchet comment from the carnival was dumb, but Flyers twitter transformed it into such a big deal that it caught national coverage, and prompted a press conference just to say “Everything is fine”.

9. I found their conversation really interesting and right on point. All the drama queens have absolutely no idea how the inner workings of NHL hockey or pro sports. Quite annoying to me. There are too many glass half empty people in the world today.

10. Man imagine if we had kept Shaw instead of kicking him to the curb

11. i hate the flyers man. sixers were public enemy #1 going into the year by farrrrr and it’s insane how fast they 180’d with the flyers. 

    i’ve never had less interest with the flyers. the fucking stream of old players in the front office is past nauseating. 

12. maybe not overstated, but definitely opinion postulated as fact!

13. Had the Flyers kept this in house this wouldn’t be an issue. But Tocchet has to keep putting it out there.

    It’s like AJ Brown’s cryptic tweets – just shut the fuck up and keep it in house, don’t go putting shit out there to the media and then going “Why is this blowing up?”.

    Briere should be taking Tocchet into his office and telling him to shut the fuck up. Instead briere tends to reinforce it.