We know all about brothers coming to reunite on the Philadelphia Flyers, or twins playing on the west coast and having Hall of Fame careers — but what about clones?
At an informal Flyers practice in Voorhees, just a day before rookie camp begins and a week or so before the NHL-level training camp kicks off, a mix of young prospects and full-time regulars all got in the ice together to run through some casual drills and pal around in a scrimmage before the real work starts.
But, what’s that? What do we see there? Is that…two Matvei Michkovs?
Two Matvei Michkovs here (one is Massimo Rizzo wearing Michkov’s white jersey). pic.twitter.com/bR6QLhvXB9
— Jordan Hall (@JHallNBCS) September 10, 2025
Thanks to NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jordan Hall, we get to briefly see that there were two Matvei Michkovs on the ice. Was it the fact that the Flyers finally discovered some cloning technology specifically for hockey players? We know Comcast is loaded, but we didn’t think that they were Evil Villain In Sci-Fi Movie loaded.
Unfortunately, Hall doesn’t let the mystery go on for very long and in the same post unveils that the secondary Michkov is actually prospect Massimo Rizzo just wearing the young Russian phenom’s white practice jersey.
We have to assume that the reason why this happened is as simple as Rizzo just forgetting his own practice jersey at home, the equipment staff not having a sweater with his name on it right now, or maybe the only one they do have is currently being washed. But, we will happily go off thinking that Rizzo wanted to just get a little bit of that Michkov Magic and like in a 2002 classic starring Bow Wow, was hoping to gain some powers from just a piece of clothing.
And maybe it ended up working.
PHLY’s own Charlie O’Connor, in response to seeing that Rizzo was wearing Michkov’s sweater, noted that the depth Phantoms forward actually just weaved and dangled his way through the defense during scrimmage, so maybe we really are living in a world where Like Mike 3 will actually be filmed in Philadelphia and be on the ice.
Rizzo finished his rookie season last year with the Phantoms, with a total of six goals and 18 points in 46 games after scoring boatloads of points in college hockey for the University of Denver. Maybe more than anyone in the organization, the 24-year-old forward could use some special powers from the most talented Flyer we have seen in quite a while.
But, what if splitting his talent into two practice jerseys causes Michkov to suffer a sophomore slump? Is the 20-year-old winger too selfless and generous to his teammates for his own good? Now, if Michkov doesn’t improve compared to his rookie season, we know the source of the problem.
