Matvei Michkov likes to think and play offense.
He likes to read and react for when the puck might shoot the other way so he can potentially score in transition.
It’s an aspect of his game that will never go away. Brad Shaw even joked last season that the Flyers’ coach 10 years from now might still see some drift in Michkov’s game.
“But I think it’s one of the reasons that he’s a great player,” the former interim head coach said in April. “I think it’s a reason why he’s dangerous, is his ability to anticipate.”
Rick Tocchet would probably agree. But he will look for Michkov to find the right balance.
“He has just got to differentiate when is the time to take off and when is the time we need him to hang in there,” the Flyers’ head coach said earlier this week after practice. “That’s the one thing he has got to figure out. I get it, he wants to be an offensive player, but you can’t take off when we don’t have the puck.
“We’re trying to create a culture here, it’s not about one player. But he is obviously a player that is a special guy that we’ve got to hone his talents. But it has got to be somewhat in a team game.”
As much as Michkov loves to score, he also loves to win. He’ll compete. So Tocchet expressed confidence in the 20-year-old buying into the Flyers’ concepts and preferences.
“He’s willing to do it because I think his last two practices were great, he did video again today,” Tocchet said Wednesday. “He came up for us, he goes, ‘Coach, I need video.’ He talked about some other stuff where he felt his legs felt better the last couple of days, which is good.”
On Monday, Tocchet divulged that Michkov dealt with an ankle issue this summer, which limited some of the winger’s offseason work.
“I was training in the summer and got a little, minor injury in the ankle,” Michkov said Wednesday through translator Slava Kuznetsov, a Flyers consultant. “Now I’m getting back into playing form.
“I want to score, of course. I’m sure if I’m going to continue working, it will come. Most important is the team winning.”
Michkov recorded his first point of the season in the team’s fourth game, a 5-2 loss Thursday night to the Jets. It came late in the third period with the game pretty much out of reach. But it could be just what Michkov needed for a spark — seeing the puck go into the net.
“Oh yeah,” Tocchet said Saturday morning ahead of his team’s home game against the Wild (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP). “Any high-level guys. I hate to say, even like a cheap assist loosens guys up. Adam Oates used to tell me that all the time, you don’t score for three, four games, people start talking, but just that assist loosens you up.”