Flyers' Matvei Michkov named NHL rookie of the month

Everyone is watching Kites games know how well Matvei Michkov is. Now the NHL has taken notice.

On Friday, Michkov was named the NHL’s Rookie of the Month for October. He skated in 11 games and scored four goals and five assists, with the nine points coming in the first eight games of the season. He is the first Flyer to be selected for this honor since James van Riemsdyk in November 2009.

“Some fragments work well, others don’t,” Michkov said Friday through Slava Kuznetsov, a team consultant. “Everything is a work in progress.”

The work in progress looks pretty good so far. He finished October first among rookies in goals (four), power play goals (three) and power play points (six), and was tied with Logan Stankoven of the Dallas Stars for first place with nine points.

At just 19 years old, Michkov has dazzled fans with his hockey vision and determination. The Russian phenom made his NHL debut on October 11 against the Vancouver Canucks and played almost 19 minutes. He put on Travis Konecny on a power play for his first NHL point the next night in Calgary.

Two nights later, against Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers, he scored his first NHL goal on a power play when he knocked the puck in around the side of the net. There were a few delays, first to determine if it went in and then the Oilers challenged due to goalie interference, but once it became official he was allowed to celebrate the milestone moment.

“I think maybe everyone in this room is more excited than he is, I hope,” said Garnet Hathaway after the match, who shook up Michkov when the goal was given. “You can see the fight he has, the competition he has. And I think a goal like that embodies exactly what he brings to the game.”

Michkov added another power play marker to the game and his first four NHL points came with the man advantage. He became the first Flyer to score his first two goals in the same match since Vinny Prospal on March 8, 1997, and the youngest to score a multi-goal match since Nolan Patrick in April 2018.

In two games against fellow countryman Alex Ovechkin, he scored once and added two assists for one of his three multi-point games.

“He came flying out of the blocks,” associate coach Brad Shaw said Friday. “You can see he loves having the puck on his stick. This is a brutal competition, a very tough competition, and when we try to learn a language, try to learn how it’s played on this big surface of ice, I think we all expect a few bumps in the road, but he’ll come out of the gate comes so quickly and shows what he can do.”

There were some bumps on Thursday evening 2-1 win over the St. Louis BluesMichkov sat for a few shifts. Coach Johannes Tortorella said after the game that he wouldn’t go into details about the three-team, five-on-five format — he did step in for a power play in between — but said it was “repetitive.”

“He likes to play on the move, and in this league there are a lot of elements to the game where stop and start is a much more effective way to defend or control or even provide support offensively,” Shaw said. “He tends to keep moving and sometimes that might push you out of the good ice you started in.

‘He’s learning. … He is a driven man. You see how competitive he is, and there’s no doubt he’ll take care of those things and become a better hockey player.

One thing that has become clear is his connection to Travis Konecny. The two fiery wingers – yes, Michkov plays with an edge too – have come close or had contact on a number of occasions.

According to Natural Stat Trick, when the Flyers are on the ice together, they have scored eight goals on 162 shot attempts; the opposition has eight goals on 87 shot attempts. When it is Michkov without Konency (42.13%) or Konecny without Michkov (39.58%), the shot attempts are for vs. against in favor of the opponent. But it’s still a work in progress.

“Travis is a great player,” Michkov said. “Something works well, something doesn’t. I probably needed a little more time to bond and get really good chemistry.”

These days, Michkov is just trying to enjoy the game and the experience of being an NHL player. Selected by the Flyers with the seventh pick in the 2023 NHL draft, he arrived in the U.S. two years earlier than expected after being released from his deal with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL. Michkov signed his entry-level contract with the Flyers on July 1 and has started his career as advertised.

And while the NHL Rookie of the Month honor is the first step toward bigger hardware, Michkov knows he couldn’t have accomplished it without his teammates.

“I want to thank my linemates because without them this wouldn’t happen,” he said.