The Philadelphia Flyers might be playing a game on Tuesday but all anyone can talk about is the potential crisis regarding head coach Rick Tocchet and winger Matvei Michkov. So much so that general manager Danny Briere had to come and clear the air publicly.
As the rumors started to swirl that there is potentially a massive conflict between Michkov and Tocchet bubbling up to the surface, and just about everyone had their take on how the Flyers should handle the situation, the team acted quickly enough to potentially calm the waters.
Flyers GM Briere tries to get everyone to calm down about Tocchet and Michkov
Before the game started as the Flyers hosted the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night, Briere met with the media to try and make it clear that everything is fine behind the scenes and the young star winger and head coach aren’t butting heads as much as everyone wants to think.
“The other thing,” Briere said after going over the current state of the Flyers in the media availability, “is the Rick Tocchet, Matvei Michkov [situation] that’s out there. One thing I can tell you first of all is Matvei Michkov is not going anywhere. Let’s make that clear, okay? Matvei is going to be here for a long time. He’s going to be a good player, here for the Flyers and what he’s going through right now is all part of the learning process. So that’s out of the way. It’s not going anywhere. He’ll be here. He’ll be a good player.
Flyers General Manager Daniel Briere met with the media from @XMobileArena prior to tonight's matchup with the Caps. pic.twitter.com/UxFxTTmkgI
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) February 4, 2026
“You don’t know what you don’t know. Matvei arrived here and along with guys like Denver Barkey and Nikita Grebenkin, they’re learning how to become better pros. Now, you don’t know before you arrive to the NHL what it’s like on a daily basis and the grind and everything that’s attached to it and they’re learning, and that’s what Rick Tocchet is trying to teach them. I’ve been through it. Keith Jones has been through it. Rick Tocchet has been through it. It’s all part of the process. You can go in our locker room, you can ask guys like Jamie Drysdale, Bobby Brink, Tyson Foerster, Cam York — they’ve all been through it. When arrive, it’s tough. And that’s where we’re fortunate.
“I said a couple years ago when Matvei arrived earlier than expected, we knew there would be some bumps along the way. And that’s kind of what is happening.”
Suppose that’s the benefit of having former players (and Flyers) all over the organization — they have all to some degree experienced some sort of setback or failure in their development. Maybe not on such a large stage or were the center of attention while going through it, like Michkov currently is, but there has certainly been some adversity.
Rick Tocchet wants Matvei Michkov to succeed, according to Briere
Briere continued to discuss more details about Tocchet and Michkov’s relationship on and off the ice, along with some references to the fan base’s main gripe they have with the situation.
“The other thing I can tell you, and I talk to Rick Tocchet on a daily basis, he wants Matvei to succeed. He wants to develop him to be the best player he can be. Along the way there’s tough lessons that come with that. It’s like raising a child. There’s tough lessons that he’s learning. It doesn’t matter if he’s playing 12, 14, 16, or even if he was playing 52 minutes a night, he’s learning along the way. That’s part of the process. It’s going to make him a better player along the way and Rick Tocchet wants that. He wants to be here for the long haul to lead this team.
“Him and Matvei, they have a good relationship. Sometimes they’re fiery. Sometimes, you know, when you’re not winning, things are done and said but they always come back to the table and they want the best for this team and Rick wants the best for Matvei.”
Briere specifically making a reference to the amount of minutes that Michkov is playing makes it evident that the front office is hearing a whole lot of the complaints about the situation. Michkov is averaging fewer minutes than a whole lot of other forwards on the team and is deployed in such a way that keeps him away from any potentially defensive situation, but that’s all a learning process according to Briere.
And of course, it’s two professional athletes (from different eras) working together. Both have an intense competitive drive, so as Briere mentioned, it feels natural to get a little bit fiery in conversations.
Briere touches on allegations of Michkov missing off-ice treatments
Briere then went into even further detail on the rumors. On PHLY’s livestream at the Flyers Carnival and their interview with the head coach, Tocchet mentioned “missing treatments” as part of something a player could do to possibly get their ice time reduced.
“I know there were some comments regarding, you know, missing treatments from Rick Tocchet at the carnival,” Briere said. “Those comments were made — trying to explain how players are learning along the way. He wasn’t targeting Matvei. You know, Matvei is learning and there’s things that have happened along the way, just like they’ve happened with the Denver Barkeys, Grebenkin, and I’m sure if you ask Trevor Zegras there are things like that. He’s trying to teach these guys to become better pros — making sure everything off the ice is taken care of and treatments is one of them.”
Briere continued to mention how a player like Travis Konecny went through multiple seasons where he could barely score 20 goals after easily achieving that feat earlier in his career. And even more specifically said that players going through those slumps is how they managed to land current roster members like Trevor Zegras and Owen Tippett — undervalued from their former organizations because they were still learning.
“One thing I know about Matvei is how driven he is,” Briere said. “He wants to be the best player he can be. He admitted himself that he wasn’t in the best physical condition coming in. It’s going to be tough to catch up now but he’s in better shape than he was when he arrived this season. Unfortunately, everybody is in better shape than they were at training camp, so it’s really tough for him to catch up with the amount of games that we have, the amount of travel that we have. It’s just tough for him to catch up in season. He’s going to do that in the offseason. It was a good lesson for him and it’s just going to make him a better hockey player coming next year.”
According to Briere, Michkov will remain local to the team during the Olympic break for the next couple of weeks and train in an attempt to re-gain some of that lost fitness from the offseason. He made no promises, though.
Briere comments on the recent Flyers skid
More broadly, Briere opened up with a statement on the team-wide performance as of late. With the Flyers losing 11 of their previous 13 games before Tuesday night, something was needed to be said about where they are, considering things were much better earlier in the season.
“I just wanted to address a little bit of the noise that is going around,” Briere told the media before the puck dropped Tuesday night. “Especially when it comes to the little bit of a rocky patch that we’ve hit lately. I know it’s upset a lot of people but it’s just the reality of a team growing. Early in the season, you know when we were fighting for one of the top positions in the division, we realized that was probably a little ahead of schedule. It was probably getting better results than was warranted at the time. What’s happened now, with the way we’ve been playing lately and what’s happening, I also know that it’s not as bad as the way we’ve playing — it’s somewhere in between all that.
“It’s important to keep even keel. One thing I’ve learned as a player is not to get too high when things are going well and not to get too low when things are sliding. So, that’s how we feel. We’ve said all along that our players would tell us when it’s time but it’s still part of the rebuild; we’re still dealing with a young team that is learning how to face those tough games, those tough experiences. That’s all part of the process.”
The Flyers will be hosting the Capitals Tuesday night and then Claude Giroux comes back to Philadelphia on Thursday before the team doesn’t have to face any game action until Feb. 25. Fingers crossed that they come out after the break with maybe less noise around them and there’s more focus on hockey things rather than two members of the organization possibly having a workplace spat.
