Coming into the 2024-25 season, it felt that Matvei Michkov had a sizeable advantage on the competition to end the season as the NHL’s top rookie and win the first Calder Trophy in Philadelphia Flyers history. But as it stands halfway through the season, is the 20-year-old winger starting to lose his grip on the coveted prize?
Michkov had a whole lot going for him. More than any other rookie, he was put in a good environment to thrive. While other rookies had just scraped by to make the NHL roster and had to climb up the depth chart, Michkov was handed a spot in the top six immediately. And, with the Flyers doing their own style of a rebuild and not getting rid of anyone that might be on the older side worth anything; wanting to stay competitive, Michkov had the talent around him to potentially produce more than any other rookie.
That was our thought process 41 games ago. There was the perfect situation for Michkov to walk away with the Calder and after seeing just how dynamic he was in the preseason, we were more than comfortable with predicting that the Flyers would finally have a Rookie of the Year.
And it certainly started out that way. Michkov was averaging a point per game and looked like such a scoring threat that could beat just any goaltender in the National in any way that he wanted. Was he getting lucky and a quarter of his shots on goal were going in? Yes. But did he look the part and didn’t really get any “easy” goals? That, too. It was just so easy to see him running away and then standing on stage at the NHL Awards to accept a trophy that we all knew was his as soon as the first puck dropped for the season.
But now halfway through this rookie campaign, the competition is getting extremely stiff and Michkov has plateaued into a Very Good winger, rather than an elite one immediately.
Macklin Celebrini was and is his main competition. It was pre-determined that the 2024 first-overall selection would give a fight for whoever wins the Calder, but maybe the situation in San Jose was just not ripe enough to have him put up the numbers. Well, unfortunately for all of us, he has scored 13 goals and 28 points in 31 games. The 18-year-old center is just one point below Michkov’s total and has played eight fewer games.
Beyond the raw point totals too, Celebrini playing down the middle gives him an advantage on any rookie winger when it comes to being crowned top rookie. He’s doing all of this while being the most important Shark in all three zones of the ice. Michkov right now, is just a pure offensively gifted winger that has certainly battled defensively at times, but that’s not what he excels at. Celebrini is just a monster and a hound on the puck. Watching him makes you dream of championships with a player like that — and heck, he’s probably going to win some more individual awards on the way.
It’s really difficult to see just one single goal highlight and not think that Celebrini is seen as a more impactful player on the ice compared to Michkov.
Will Smith and Macklin Celebrini are DYNAMITE, talk about a stellar duo to watch 🧨 pic.twitter.com/HZsVt3fu77
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) December 28, 2024
Not to say that Michkov doesn’t bring a positive impact, or will never reach the same level of overall impact as Celebrini, but right now, that Sharks team is purely run by the rookie and doing all-out plays on both sides of the puck.
And then, comes even the larger question mark. Montreal Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson is currently leading all rookies in scoring. That’s right. A defenseman on a mediocre team has 30 points in 40 games and looks great doing it.
We won’t gush too much about Hutson, but it’s certainly impressive to score that much as a rookie defenseman who isn’t the most powerful presence on the ice. He skates like the wind and has earned 13 of his 30 points on the man advantage — his 43 percent of points coming on the power play is just slightly above Michkov’s 41.3 percent — and that’s just how he’s getting all of the production. There is no doubt that he has earned it, too.
Hutson is carrying the narrative of his deployment being especially easy. But among the 219 defensemen who have played at least 200 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey in the NHL this season, Hutson’s 53.95 offensive zone start percentage ranks him just 60th. Players like Morgan Rielly, Roman Josi, and Cale Makar — all ultra offensively gifted blueliners — are getting much more favorable deployment than the Habs rookie. And when you compare that to Michkov’s 72.73 percent of offensive zone starts, it is extremely easy to see who is truly getting the tougher deployment.
In reality, we should be really looking at Calgary Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf as the true neck-and-neck competition in this race. It’s extremely disheartening, but trying to determine if a 20-year-old rookie having a decent rookie campaign for a very good player is more or less impressive than a 23-year-old goaltender leading a below-average team through a playoff race. Wolf could be one of the best netminders in the NHL and in his first full season, he has earned a .914 save percentage and a 2.60 goals against average. Maybe it is just the terrible goaltenders we have in Philadelphia, but that feels so impressive for a young netminder to do on a team that wasn’t supposed to be all that good this season.
All in all, while we were once so hopeful that Michkov could run away with this trophy, it is getting less realistic by the day. Every time Celebrini puts on a 200-foot performance and Hutson goes end-to-end to set up a scoring chance or dances his way through opposing defenses, it becomes less likely that the Flyers will get their first Calder winner.
What would it take for Michkov to climb back? It’s tough to really think about it, but he would need to probably go back up to a point-per-game pace as the two frontrunners lose some months to a long-term injury. That would tip the scales enough in the most forceful way possible. Unfortunately, we don’t really see that happening and Michkov will be yet another solid rookie left without an individual award.
But hey, Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby never won the Calder in their rookie years, either.
