How Michkov scored his first 11 goals for Flyers

Matvei Michkov just cannot stop scoring. In the first 26 games of his NHL career, the 19-year-old has managed to earn 14 assists and 11 total goals. That is a rate of rookie production that we have not seen since Mat Barzal debuted and earlier some guy named Connor McDavid entered the league for the first time. By the pure numbers alone, he is in unique company as one of the most exciting talents to come into the NHL and immediately make an impact.

In a loss to the Boston Bruins on Dec. 7, the Philadelphia Flyers rookie scored his 10th and 11th career goals, becoming the first debutant this season to hit the double-digit mark. While his existing total would have sufficed and him hitting that milestone doesn\'t change our opinions about how dynamic of a scorer he is, it made it clearer to point at exactly how he has been such a gamechanger for the Flyers.

But how is Michkov getting these goals? Some scorers have unique tendencies when it comes to getting their goals -- and we either find out those habits after a couple seasons with a larger sample size, or right away. So, seeing what Michkov has done so far, can we take any further understanding just what kind of scorer he is, from his 11 career goals right now?

Getting in the greasy areas

When Matvei Michkov was still a prospect for the 2023 NHL Draft and crushing defenses overseas, you could almost immediately tell who knew what they were talking about and who was a complete buffoon and would just take any standard reputation for a skilled Russian winger, and apply it to Michkov. If someone wanted to Talk Prospects (or is employed by a national rightsholder) and labeled Michkov as a lazy-but-talented winger who didn\'t work too hard for his points, you could just point and laugh in their face.

Above everything else, Michkov grinds goals out. All he does in the offensive zone is work tirelessly to either get the puck to his teammates in prime scoring chances, or stealthily get himself in those areas of the ice to pot an easy one home. Some goals come easier than others, but in this goal against the Vegas Golden Knights, Michkov really pulled out all the stops:

Good morning. Thinking about Matvei Michkov’s goal on Monday. pic.twitter.com/QM8tIIf3LY

— TLY (@TheLibertyYell) November 27, 2024

Let\'s just go through a list of what Michkov did to set himself up for a goal. He entered the zone with possession of the puck. He made a drop pass to linemate Owen Tippett and while the left winger went for a shot that eventually got blocked, Michkov glided over to a perfect one-time position at the right-side faceoff dot (one opportunity to score). He retrieved the puck after Morgan Frost had a battle along the boards and while skating parallel to the goal line, he was able to center the puck to Frost amidst a whole bunch of defenders. The puck trickled around and Michkov was able to see the uncomfortable possession, swoop to the front of the net going relatively unnoticed and then just absolutely wired the puck past the netminder.

Maybe just a perfect summation of what Michkov does on a whole lot of shifts for his teammates. An outpouring of scoring chances automatically generated. And all of it coming in high-danger areas in the offensive zone -- that is what people talk about when they mention vision on the ice and why Michkov is already elite.

While that goal put on display the entire picture of his offensive output, sometimes, it\'s just pure and rugged hard work that gets you on the scoresheet. Maybe the most appropriate time for this was when Michkov scored his first career NHL goal in the nastiest of areas . Just hammering the absolute crap out of the puck. Making a strong statement that not every single one of his points will be because of his talent -- he can outwork his opposition while also bringing all the flash.

There\'s nothing not earned here.

Insane shot angles

And maybe on the other side of the coin when it comes to Michkov\'s offense, is when he can just put all the hustle and bustle out of his mind and unload his impressive skillset on the ice.

While we can appreciate his work along the boards, his stripping of the puck from opponent\'s sticks, and everything else he can do to rack up some points, sometimes it just comes down to a shot that hardly anyone in the entire world can make. Such as, this overtime game-winning goal against the Ottawa Senators.

19-year-old Matvei Michkov

Youngest player in Flyers history to score an OT goal pic.twitter.com/T6hvJvsfbK

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) November 15, 2024

We have already seen Michkov pull of some tight angled shots before, but it was more from a stationary position and he was able to set himself up to roof it over the netminder\'s shoulder. But in this goal against the Senators, he scored from the awkward angle while in motion. It feels impossible. We have seen other superstars like Kirill Kaprizov and Steven Stamkos be able to hit a similar shot like this for a goal multiple times through their career, but it feels like when we play it back in our collective heads, it is always with them standing still and just being able to get the perfect shot off. Like someone standing and eyeing up their shot in a game of pool; there is all the time in the world to plant your feet and do what you have done in practice all the time.

But Michkov does it while in motion and it just feels so much more impressive.

Like we said, this has already happened multiple times with Michkov. To be able to do this consistent enough to have multiple tight-angle goals just 26 or so games into your NHL career -- this is not just going to be some one-off play we don\'t see again. It\'s something he is more than comfortable doing and executing.

Picking his spots

While we can take his high work ethic and being able to score from awkward angles as direct examples of consistent themes we have seen so far from Michkov, now it\'s time for something a little bit more broad.

Simply put, Michkov will not continue scoring on 22.4 percent of his shots on goal. There\'s just no chance that almost a quarter of his shots end up in the back of the net. And while with most players we would just say that they are on an abnormal heater and it will all come crashing back to earth soon enough, as we have seen in the first example of a goal, this isn\'t just some flukey scoring streak.

Michkov puts work into each and every one of his goals, and sometimes that just leads to more of them going in than league average. He isn\'t a volume shooter right now, like a hero Alex Ovechkin, but he is more picky with when exactly he is releasing his shot.

As we can see in this lovely graphic from our pal at HockeyViz.com, when it comes to Michkov\'s unblocked shot attempts (includes missed shots), we can see that he is scoring so much more often from those areas on the ice than league average. And it\'s those areas on the ice that we have seen in clips above -- right in the high slot between the circles, and then in tight angles where he gets to shine with his off-handed shot.

Unless you are being super particular about where Michkov is shooting from, there are no real cold zones for him. Whenever he decides to attempt a shot that doesn\'t get blocked by some member of the opposition, it has a decent chance to go in. There aren\'t just any attempts for the sake of getting a shot on the box score, everything is deliberate for the 20-year-old winger and is thought through. That is just another reason why he is such a special player. There is no waste of possession.

Power play prowess

It is impossible to mention Michkov\'s early scoring success and not specifically talk about his effect on the power play. With five of his 11 goals coming on the man advantage, he is already such an established scoring threat. And maybe the best part about it is that while we can see his rate of scoring being overall an inflated percentage, Michkov\'s shooting percentage on the power play isn\'t all that lofty.

Among the 126 forwards who have played at least 60 minutes on the power play this season, Michkov\'s 31.25 shooting percentage places him 15th. Now, of course that is very high and towards the top of the league in that category. But, during the entire 2023-24 season, among forwards who played at least 120 minutes (a rough increase of prorated minutes), there were still four skaters that finished the season with a higher shooting percentage on the power play than Michkov currently has.

Those forwards were Timo Meier, Valeri Nichushkin, Sam Reinhart, and Lawson Crouse. Now, of course this percentage shouldn\'t carry on for Michkov, but it wouldn\'t surprise us if he finishes the season with more than a quarter of his power-play shots ending up as power-play goals. Sixteen total forwards were able to achieve that feat and knowing just how precise Michkov likes to make his chances, it might just happen for him.

Summary of the entire article: Michkov is so, so good at putting the puck in the back of the net.

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How Matvei Michkov scored his first 11 goals

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