February 20, 2026
Kyle Ross/Imagn Images
It'll be huge for the Flyers if Matvei Michkov can close out the year strong.
The Olympics are at their apex over in Italy. Meanwhile, the Flyers (save for their Olympians Travis Sanheim, Rasmus Ristolainen, Dan Vladar, and coach Rick Tocchet) have been back on the ice practicing over in Voorhees.
Their schedule, after 56 games, will resume Wednesday in Washington, as the start of a back-to-back that heads straight to Madison Square Garden after to play the Rangers.
And they'll be coming back in an awkward spot.
They went into the Olympic break with 61 points at 25-20-11. They're eight points back of both the Boston Bruins for the second Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference and the New York Islanders for the 3-seed in the Metropolitan Division.
At the start of January, the Flyers looked like they were about to be well within the playoff race and controlling their own destiny. They were occupying a postseason spot, little separation within the standings at the time suggested they could start to pull away if they kept playing well, and they had just crushed their own public enemy No. 1 in Cutter Gauthier and the Anaheim Ducks in front of a packed Xfinity Mobile Arena crowd that looked like it genuinely wanted to believe in the Philadelphia Flyers again.
But then it all fell off.
Since that 5-2 thrashing of Anaheim on Jan. 6, the Flyers' game cratered. They snowballed into a 3-8-4 rut, capped off by a 2-1 overtime loss to Ottawa before the break that they all but sleepwalked through, which sent them sliding out of the picture, while the Bruins, Islanders, and Buffalo Sabres gained steam.
Their offense dried up, their defense got away from itself, their goal differential dipped way into the negatives at minus-13, and some controversial words from Tocchet regarding core piece Matvei Michkov's conditioning during the annual Flyers Charities Carnival created such a volatile reaction among fans and media that general manager Danny Brière needed to step in and put out the proverbial fire.
The Flyers aren't completely out of it, but the odds of them staying alive and surging back into the playoff race as they are right now aren't great. The level of play they were turning in before the break doesn't help their case much either, and has only seemed to frustrate fans further, plus leave them questioning where this team is ultimately going after year 3 of what's been sold as a long-term rebuild – another year, mind you, that's quickly headed toward looking lost unless something miraculous breaks.
"I mean, I think it's disappointing every year if you miss, you know," veteran winger Travis Konecny said Wednesday of the Flyers' current spot in the standings – on the outside looking in of the playoffs. "I think what's got everyone to this point is everyone's a competitor, everyone wants to compete in the big games and be part of the [playoffs]. When you watch the playoffs every year, it's incredible, you get nervous, you're watching overtime. You want to play in those games, but I mean, it's not gonna be like the end of the world if it didn't happen. I'd be frustrated."
"But I know that the team we're building, what we have, the plan, we're gonna be a playoff team," Konecny continued, looking into the long-term. "I'm not worried about that, and I know everyone believes in that in this locker room. So just keep on pushing. Hopefully it happens. We're gonna give everything to get there, and if it doesn't, we re-evaluate and get better in the summer."
But no matter what, the Flyers have to show some kind of forward direction, for the rest of the season, and over the next few months getting into the summer, playoffs or not.
Here are a couple more thoughts on how...
Matvei Michkov reported to camp out of shape and fell behind trying to catch up.
It's been stated time and time again, by this point. It's been asked about time and time again, and it seemed to really boil over when Brière needed to clean up after what Tocchet told AllPHLY about the Flyers' star hopeful during an interview at the carnival.
The sophomore slump bit Michkov hard. He's owned it, and said this Olympic break was going to be important for him to fit in as much training as he can to try and close out the year as strong as possible.
The 21-year-old has 13 goals, 29 points, and a minus-7 rating through 55 games. His shooting percentage has also dropped from 13.1 percent last year down to 11.1 percent for this one.
Stats-wise, Michkov is going to be extremely hard-pressed to recover this season. Development-wise, it's very arguable that he went backwards, too, but that part is much easier to take.
He still has his whole career ahead of him, and his very reachable ceiling as a high-scoring, playmaking winger didn't go anywhere.
You just have to hope that he's learned some hard lessons about keeping up in the day-to-day of the NHL, that he's adapting accordingly, and that years from now, what he's struggled through so far this season can be simply dismissed as a one-off.
This last stretch of games for him coming back will be the runway to start proving that it will be.
That said, it's going to be just as important for Tocchet to turn Michkov loose and let him go create offense when he gets back behind the Flyers' bench after the Olympics, too.
There shouldn't be any reason for Michkov to skate just 10 minutes for a game again the rest of the way.
Matvei Michkov is still a major part of the Flyers' ambitions.
Again, for the record: GET A CENTER.
Somehow, someway, the Flyers need to find that top-of-the-lineup guy who can command the puck at all times through the middle of the ice, because they don't have him right now, and it's easily their greatest weakness from night to night.
Here were the Flyers' lines in their return practice this week, as spotted by NBC Sports Philadelphia's Jordan Hall:
Flyers' top nine at practice the last three days:
— Jordan Hall (@JHallNBCS) February 19, 2026
Zegras-Dvorak-Konecny
Michkov-Cates-Brink
Barkey-Couturier-Tippett
Fourth line hasn't had a center, but has been Hathaway, Grebenkin, Grundstrom and Deslauriers.
Hathaway is not practicing today.
Tying back to Michkov, Steve Peters, a longtime video coach for the former Arizona Coyotes who overlapped with Tocchet when he made his head coaching run through Arizona, caught social media fire among the Flyers fan sphere a couple of weeks ago when he went into the finer details of Michkov's struggles this season by the tape. You can watch that video breakdown in full HERE.
Ultimately, Peters was optimistic about Michkov's potential and his current problems being fixable, but he followed up with an interview about the young winger on AllPHLY's Flyers podcast this past week and dropped this notable bit:
"If you're going to add something...get me some veteran guys that have done something before...somebody that has won a Cup and knows what this process is like."
— PHLY Flyers (@PHLY_Flyers) February 18, 2026
- @spetershockey on using the NHL Trade Deadline to help Matvei Michkov's development pic.twitter.com/OqcQFS7qr0
The transcript, with the bolded words indicating Peters' emphasis:
"I think this is more of a guy [Michkov] that has to learn the little details, and it's not just the coaching staff. I wanna hammer this home: It is the players around him. The best teams in this league have a leadership group that can hold the guys on their team accountable. If Matvei Michkov is playing for Sidney Crosby right now, he is doing things differently, because the Pittsburgh Penguins have a core leadership group of veteran players, that have won, and are dragging those young kids through it. You don't make those mistakes continually, because you're hearing it from the captain, not always from the coach.
"And I do think, [Sean Couturier], great kid. But he might not have that same voice that you see of some of these other guys across the league that have that veteran leadership. I would look for that for the Flyers to add something at the trade deadline. If you're gonna add something, get me a veteran guy. Maybe it's not the 22-year-old guy that's gonna score me 30. Get me some veteran guys that have done something before. Get me somebody that has won, somebody that has won a Cup, and knows this process is like." [AllPHLY]
You can already see what Peters is talking about with the Penguins. Their GM, Kyle Dubas, has been actively working to make the team younger, but the process is functioning more as a retool than a rebuild because Crosby is right there at the top, still skating as one of the best players in the world, accelerating the newer players' growth. To an extent, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang have done the same.
The Flyers themselves haven't been strangers to keeping established, and accomplished, vets around the past couple of years either as a guiding voice. They signed Marc Staal for a year fresh off the Florida Panthers' first run to the Stanley Cup Final, then picked up Erik Johnson as another source of wisdom who had won a Cup with Colorado in 2022.
But they were both defensemen, and both skating in limited on-ice roles at the end of their careers.
There's some talent and experience there, sure, but no one even within Crosby's shadow who is skating next to Michkov as his center right now.
Robert Thomas over in St. Louis sure does seem like a nice fit right now. He has won a Cup after all, and is a 25-plus goal scorer who is about to enter the prime of his career. It just might take a boatload to pry him loose from the Blues, even though they have been reported to have the "for sale" sign up.
Even then, they'd still ideally want that young centerman who would theoretically come up with Michkov and thrive together as an eventually elite pairing for a decade plus.
But they haven't found that guy in the draft yet, and there's no guarantee they finally do find him this summer either.
For now, all you can do is watch 19-year-old Macklin Celebrini fly around for Team Canada and daydream.
The process back here in Philly is still going to take a while, provided it even works.
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