This whole Philadelphia Flyers season has hinged on a couple things: Whether or not the goaltending can be not historically bad, whether Trevor Zegras fits in, and if Matvei Michkov can elevate his game to the next level. The first two have become a reality but unfortunately we have now experienced more than half a season of the potential cornerstone piece for this team flounder in his sophomore season.
But, that’s all changing and fast.
Over the last couple of weeks, Matvei Michkov has been on a mission to defy all the doubters and people that wanted to write off his entire year because he started it out extremely poorly. We’re not going to sugarcoat just how off and out of place and not himself he looked in the first 30-40 games of the season — it was so bad and caused us to have so much internal panic. That mess has been almost completely washed out of Michkov’s game and he is looking like the young stud we loved last season.
Came out BUZZING. #PHIvsCOL | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/jp1Y4f0ToW
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) January 24, 2026
While it is just so visible on all of our screens and we don’t grimace and think about decades of future mediocrity in Philadelphia (as much), Michkov’s numbers back up his recent surge back into being one of the most electric young forwards in the league.
Matvei Michkov is providing an elite level of offense for Flyers lately
Since Jan. 21, in Michkov’s last four games, he has been unloading the puck to the net as much as possible and it’s a stark difference compared to what we saw earlier. While he was passing up opportunities and not ever seeming dangerous before, now he’s one of the Flyers’ offensive weapons during what has been an awkward stretch of games.
In that timeline of the last four games, Michkov has the fourth-highest shots on goal in the NHL with 19. He does just have two goals to show for it, but he has been unloading towards the opposing netminder, and also at a very good rate. Obviously, due to Michkov playing fewer minutes than some of the biggest stars, his other totals in shot attempts, unblocked shot attempts, and individual expected goals are lower — mainly because he is picking his shots well and his 23 attempts have converted to 19 shots on goal — but when looking at just how often he gets his shot off, it’s elite.
Yeah, Michkov’s 19 shots in the 58 minutes he played in those four games make him have a league-leading 19.53 shots per hour (easy math) and the next-best is Alex Debrincat with a measly 15.94 shots per hour. Going down the line; Michkov has the third-highest unblocked attempts per hour (20.55), seventh-highest shot attempts per hour (23.64), and the 12th-highest individual expected goals per hour clocking in at 2.06.
It’s not some fluke either. Looking at the names who are up there when it comes to players hovering around Michkov’s rates of getting the puck off his stick, it’s filled to the brim with stars. Auston Matthews, David Pastrnak, Tomas Hertl, Dylan Guenther, Alex Ovechkin, Cole Caufield, Filip Forsberg — these are players who have strolled to 30-goal seasons (or will in the future) and are some of the best goalscorers of all time. In the last week, Michkov has been contributing at their level.
Now, we just have to hope that this last week is Michkov re-finding his offensive game under head coach Rick Tocchet and not just a flash in the pan during a miserable season. It does seem like the player himself is back to normal and doing everything possible he can on the ice, now it’s just about him getting the right opportunities to do more of that and it to turn into goals and points and numbers we can all point to and scream from the mountains that he’s back.
