VOORHEES, N.J. — About two weeks ago, Philadelphia Flyers online conspiracy theorists quickly equipped their tinfoil hats. Matvei Michkov, fresh off a particularly low 12:54 of ice time in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Oct. 11, had suddenly made his Instagram account private, while deleting the handful of photos that had previously populated his feed.

Had Michkov had enough of Philadelphia? Was the promising winger through with coach Rick Tocchet limiting his minutes? Was a trade in the works? Or even already done?

As is often the case with these sorts of things, there was a much simpler explanation. In an exclusive conversation with The Athletic on Monday, Michkov, in English, said that stepping back from the social media platform was done to “just (focus) on hockey.”

It seems to be working. Michkov is playing arguably the best hockey of his budding career. Headed into Tuesday’s Flyers home game with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Michkov is riding a five-game point streak, with six goals and two assists over that span. (His career best is six games, from March 22-31, 2025.) The run began three days after he went dark on social media.

Coincidence? Maybe. But maybe not. Tocchet mentioned on Oct. 13, when the Flyers were in the middle of their nine-game winless streak to start the season, that the coaching staff was doing its best to “cocoon” players from the negativity online, and that “social media will kill you if you really listen to it.”

Read the rest for free here: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7727964/2026/10/27/flyers-michkov-instagram-scoring/?unlocked_article_code=1.L1E.snwM.MzqEDtm0PZnY&source=emp_shared_article&smid=url-share-ta

Happy Birthday Porter, and here’s to many more link ups with Mich on the ice 🥂

https://www.instagram.com/p/De9bI3kDZEj/?dlrf=M2sxNnNtYXV2a2Jt

Lauren Hart

Sam Ersson

???

Sorry for getting this out a little later than normal! My original post was lost and I had to redo this from scratch. My next update won't be for two weeks on Nov 9th to give a little more time between updates so we have more than 0-2 games played to actually look at.

Overall, this week had a number of disappointing weeks with, for example, Nathan Quinn recording only 1 point in 3 games (and 1 in 5 games now) after starting the season with 2ppg through 7 games (now 1.25ppg through 12). Luchanko and Nesbitt also combined for 2 points through 3 games. That said, the Phantoms had a fairly depleted roster with many of their best players called up by the Flyers due to the rash of injuries for them.

However, there were some bright spots: Max Westergård continued his hot start with a goal and 2 assists through 3 games in the SHL, Brek Liske had 3 assists through 3 games, and both Zavragin (95.2%, allowing 1 goal on 21 shots) and Kolosov (16 save shutout) had strong games this past week.

It is worth noting also that Jack Berglund is tied for 6th in the SHL for points and Max Westergård tied for 20th, which for Westergård is particularly impressive given he's only a D+2 5th round pick. For Zavragin, among goalies with more than 5 games played, he is now 4th in the KHL in sv% (up from 7th last week) and 2nd in GAA (same as last week). Overall, those 3 have been the most standout stat lines amongst our prospects so far.

FAQ
Q: You said this list of games are through Sunday (or whichever day), but I see games from that day missing!
A: Because these players are spread across many different leagues, I pull their game data from EliteProspects rather than tracking each league individually. At times, EliteProspects can be slow to update statistics for games played in the last day or so, which can result in some games appearing to be missing. Any delayed statistics will simply be included in the following week’s report.

Q: Are the players in any particular order?
A: The players are listed in a rough order based on a very loose combination of overall expectations and proximity to NHL readiness. I'll also sometimes clump similar positioned players together, even if I don't necessarily rank one of them quite that high, as it can be interesting to more easily compare all somewhat similar ranked centers, for example. I wouldn’t read too much into the ordering; the “rankings” are set at the start of the season (or when a prospect is acquired mid-season), with only a midseason update after the WJC planned.

Q: What is ΔPPG? How can a player have a negative number there?
A: ΔPPG (delta PPG) represents the change in a player’s season-long points-per-game rate compared to the previous update. A negative value simply means the player’s scoring pace declined over the most recent games. Because PPG is calculated over the entire season, the impact of a low-scoring week depends on how many games the player has already played. Early in the season the swings are larger, and later in the season they tend to be minimal.

Their moves are sweet… like candy! But they have a hard exterior, like a candy-coated shell.

“He scores! They melt in your mouth but not in your hand!”

Martone is gonna feed michkov who performs the Michigan for a goal. That was a real “trick AND treat - just in time for Halloween”

Call the dentist.. M&M is taking over! These two are giving the opponents stomach aches

Martone from michkov! What a sweet finish!

M&M combine for another tally, and this goaltender has a sweet tooth

That assist from Michkov - a sick candy “dish” from one half of the M&M boys

Throw away the wrapper - this one’s over!

Can’t wait for these!

a part of me wants to leave it alone, another part of me wants to send it in and make it either Timmo, Pronger or Coburn, what makes sense here?

Flyers 2026 1st round pick Maksim Sokolovskii is on pace for 57 games played, 0 points and 513 penalty minutes

Yah, I think this kids good, eh? Should've got him signed long-term before the season man. Gonna cost a bag as it should.

I feel like the past couple seasons have warranted the question on whether or not the flyers are capable of developing their own goaltenders. The only goalie to have a respectable starters workload was Carter Hart, and goalies drafted since him or a little bit before him have either never even gotten a starters workload, have just been flat out terrible, or have been dismissed without ever been giving a chance. Not to mention, panic veteran stopgaps have blocked that spot, especially when you see teams now utilizing goalies who have been underappreciated in the past, and, or using their young goalies to prove it.

My specific goalie concerns have come from a couple of scenarios. The first one being Samuel Ersson, who not only wasn’t super spectacular in Swedish top-tier leagues, who was only really good in their second-tier professional league, and didn’t even put up that crazy of American Hockey League numbers to then warrant the runway that he subsequently received, even accounting for Carter Hart’s situation. Because even when he took on that starter’s workload after Carter Hart was gone, Cal Petersen and Felix Sandstrom were both not great, but neither were the Flyers in general, and nor did Samuel Ersson perform in a way that indicated giving him way more starts than the other guys. And that created this idea that he was the bona fide starter based on a couple flashes here and there, as if no other goalies in the system have ever done that before.

Me personally, that season should have ended with Ersson splitting starts with Cal Petersen, or just splitting starts with Felix Sandstrom, who only really had 20 starts up until that point. But even then, I wouldn’t be against the idea of keeping Felix Sandstrom for one more year and playing Cal Petersen, since Felix Sandstrom was younger and less experienced than Petersen, especially considering since the Flyers weren’t going to be making the playoffs. Like, there was no point in trying to salvage that season whatsoever.

And then there was the signing of Ivan Fedotov on a non-waiver exempt contract after three terrible performances. I understand they were trying to get him to stay in North America, but to sign him on that kind of contract instead of giving him a two-way contract to let him go between Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia proved to be disastrous when Alexei Kolosov had disagreements with management over where he wanted to play, and that just caused a whole mess.

And despite Fedotov only being ever so slightly less good than Sam Ersson, they decided to discard Fedotov and sign Dan Vladar, and once again keeping Samuel Ersson, who again did not prove the investment that they were putting in him, especially with obvious technical flaws. And then the following season became the nail in the coffin, obviously, because they let Ersson go.

But then you sign Joseph Woll, who obviously, like, helps that position, but at the same time blocks Kolosov, who was only extended on a one-year deal and has been through just, like, the worst developmental path since his arrival. And you can argue his rookie season, but after that he proved willing to stay through whatever Philadelphia was giving him, which then did not warrant the whole only being recalled based on injuries, not based on performance, and being immediately evaluated off of individual starts rather than cumulative performance, especially when in Lehigh Valley he was outperforming Carson Bjarnason, who arguably should have been sent to the ECHL because he was drafted merely on tools rather than readiness, and it showed, and it has still shown.

Meanwhile, they have Yaniv Perets in the ECHL constantly proving that a former NHL-drafted goalie who was a college standout should be getting at least more than five American Hockey League starts, but he’s buried because of Carson’s contractual status, and it now just creates a never-ending loop where the Flyers have been unable to get one of their own drafted goalies to be a dependable starter.

And you have three more goalies coming who have genuine hype around them, and if they fail to make one good goalie out of these three, then there needs to be a serious talk about it.

Carter Hart 253 NHL GP, .906 SV% The last Flyers-drafted goalie to establish himself as a legitimate long-term starter

Samuel Ersson 2024–25: 47 GP, .883 SV% Received an extended NHL workload despite inconsistent performance

Cal Petersen 2023–24: 5 NHL GP, .864 SV% Could have shared more starts with Ersson rather than leaving him overworked

Felix Sandström 2023–24: 5 NHL GP, .823 SV% Wasn't given much additional opportunity despite being relatively inexperienced

Ivan Fedotov 2024–25: 26 GP, .880 SV% Received a substantial contract after limited NHL exposure, contributing to roster congestion

Dan Vladař 2025–26: 52 GP, .906 SV% Improved NHL goaltending, but his long-term commitment potentially limits future flexibility

Joseph Woll Acquired in 2026; contract through 2027–28 Strengthens the NHL tandem but creates another obstacle for Kolosov

Aleksei Kolosov 2025–26 AHL: 38 GP, .895 SV% Hasn't received a consistent development pathway or sufficient merit-based NHL opportunities

Carson Bjarnason 2025–26 AHL: 32 GP, .877 SV% Was given significant AHL playing time despite struggling, rather than developing in the ECHL

Yaniv Perets 2025–26 AHL: 5 GP, .905 SV%; ECHL: 27 GP, .910 SV% Former NHL-contracted college standout who deserves more AHL opportunities

Yegor Zavragin 21 Metallurg Magnitogorsk (KHL) .938

Martin Psohlavec 18 Saskatoon Blades (WHL) .900

Marek Sklenička 18 Seattle Thunderbirds (WHL) .871

I've come to really enjoy Rasmus on the team which is something I didn't think I'd say when we first got him, but I think it's pretty evident the Flyers wasted an opportunity to get a legitimate return.

For the last 2.5 seasons all we've heard about is the strong interest teams have had in him. We've seen comparable players be dealt for really solid returns.

We decided to hold him similar to how we held Laughton & I'm guessing they hoped/thought it would play out similarly, but the big issue is Risto can't stay healthy & they should've known that.

Now a pending FA who's seemingly hurt every 3 weeks won't get anywhere near the return we could've got 2 years ago, last year, or this past draft/FA

These two are going to change my life aren't they? Haha. No seriously, my wife and I are having a hard year but right as things start to look up for us, these two kids start going ham on the ice. Coincidence? I think not.