November 10, 2026
Bob Frid/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Matvei Michkov is flying, but the Flyers are making little other progress.
The Flyers won a hockey game Monday night in Vancouver.
They beat a really bad Canucks team, 3-1, dominated the first and second periods to do it, and had young star Matvei Michkov skating with the puck on a string and making plays all night, which included a slick setup from behind the net for Travis Konecny's power-play goal to go up 2-0.
But of course, that isn't the story. With these Philadelphia Flyers, it can't ever be that simple.
Because what really grabbed attention was that the Flyers turtled up and allowed the Canucks to outshoot them 13-2 over Monday night's final 20 minutes of regulation, all after two straight blown third-period leads, and resulting losses, in New York and then Calgary preceded it.
What grabbed attention was that as the clock pushes later into those third periods, the Flyers' key youth – mainly Michkov and Porter Martone – get put on the shelf in favor of veteran depth forwards with little offensive upside at this point in their careers for the sake of trying to win games 2-1. But the Flyers have only pulled that off in two of the last three games, and just barely to put it bluntly.
And what easily takes up the most of Flyers fans' attention, and concern, right now is Michkov and an increasingly concerning mood around the 21-year-old.
There wasn't much enthusiasm behind Konecny's goal early into the second period as teammates casually drifted toward Michkov behind the Vancouver net, after he set up the whole play.
Later on, veteran defenseman Nick Seeler was captured by the NBC Sports Philadelphia broadcast arguing with Michkov at the Flyers' bench during a stoppage, which, in isolation, wouldn't usually be anything to get worked up over. Jawing like that between teammates over potential miscues happens all the time.
Here's a wide angle of the Matvei Michkov and Nick Seeler heated exchange. #Flyers pic.twitter.com/wlUPHiIa94
— Flyers Nation (@FlyersNation) November 10, 2026
But of course, this is the 5-10-5 Philadelphia Flyers, where Michkov is the only one consistently scoring while the rest of the team has struggled to do little else to help themselves. Go back a couple of weeks to the road loss to Washington, when captain Sean Couturier notably threw out the "soft" label, and Seeler bemoaned a "me, me, me" attitude.
Fans across the Flyers social media sphere didn't waste time connecting the dots on who Seeler might've pointed those remarks at with the latter, and afterward, Monday night's passive postgame remarks about Michkov's effort didn't help to settle anyone down either.
Notably, too, during that argument between Michkov and Seeler on the bench, the 20-year-old Martone was the only one to step in between trying to diffuse the situation, not anyone wearing a letter on their chest.
"Yeah, I mean, there's actually a lot of good plays that happened before that, too, if you watch the whole thing," Konecny said of the assist he got from Michkov. "Then yeah, when I saw him have the puck in that spot, and he kind of likes doing that, coming back to the other side. So I just knew to be ready."
"Yeah, he played good, like, the whole team played really well tonight," head coach Rick Tocchet said, almost deflecting away. "So it was a good game for everybody."
Problem is, there haven't been many of those, which, obviously, means there have been very few wins to stack up.
In the rare situations where they have, though, Michkov has been the focal point for every one.
Nifty little backhand feed here from Matvei Michkov 😍 pic.twitter.com/1xlYUwatKQ
— NHL (@NHL) November 10, 2026
He leads the team, by far, with 10 goals – Trevor Zegras is the next closest with just four. But then of the 10 skaters across the NHL with 10 goals right now, Michkov has the lowest average ice time of all of them with 15:54 per game. Players, superstars even, like Tampa Bay's Jake Guentzel, Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon, and rising Anaheim youngster Becket Sennecke are averaging well above 20 minutes a night.
Martone, who was a Calder Trophy favorite for rookie of the year entering this season, is also skating a low 14:08 per game with just three goals, when he was expected to be the team's next and badly needed offensive force.
"You're trying to win games and you're trying to develop, too," Tocchet said pregame on Monday. "It's hard to do both sometimes, and sometimes it's game to game."
But what's happening right now with the Flyers isn't either.
When they have leads, they're not playing to win. They're not sending their youngest, and best, out to go score – and learn on the fly, which they have to do. They're trying to escape by the skin of their teeth. They're trying to skirt by on safe, boring hockey, which worked for them last season, but keeps consistently blowing up in their face now.
And now it might be causing derision, at least as perceived from the outside, and possibly even an erosion of culture that the Flyers have so greatly valued through their process in the past several years.
They won Monday night, sure. But this is the Philadelphia Flyers, so, of course, that isn't the story.
A bad hockey team quickly backing itself into some monumental decisions unless the players and coaches get their act together now is.
"It's a win, right?" Konecny chimed. "You can build on those for sure."
Maybe not this team, though.
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