The Philadelphia Flyers promised change under their new regime and they brought about the slogan ” New Era of Orange”. What that meant was anyone’s guess. However, entering the second season of their supposed rebuild, the Flyers are operating with an Opening Night roster that features two of their top prospects under the age of 20.
Matvei Michkov wasn’t a given until this offseason because it was always believed that he would play out the rest of his contract with SKA St. Petersburg, which meant that his debut would have been delayed until 2026. However, things played out very differently this offseason as the young Russian phenom was able to work out a contract termination before ultimately signing his entry-level contract with the Flyers on the 1st of July.
So while his arrival and debut was expected for the past 3 months, with the regular season starting this week, it’s hard not to be excited of his potential after a riveting preseason that saw him lead the league with 7 points – alongside Samuel Honzek of the Calgary Flames. His offensive brilliance was on full display but we also got to see the other aspects of his game that were generally not talked about all that much. His willingness to get to the front of the net was evident, he wasn’t afraid to get into the dirty areas or the corner boards to win a puck battle, and his competitive drive got everyone excited, including his head coach.
Speaking of his head coach, many were – and some still are – worried that John Tortorella would stifle his creativity and offensive abilities to better suture his defensive system. However, Tortorella sees it playing out a completely different way, and it should acquiesce some of that worry, considering it came from the horse’s mouth.
“We are starving for the types of plays he can make, the instinctive plays that he can make,” said Tortorella. “I do not want to overload him, we are certainly going to teach him along the way, especially situational play. That’s the key thing when you’re dealing with offensive players. There’s certain times in the game that you have to be simple, you may have to fight another day to make that play between someone’s legs, that’s something I know we’re going to have to teach him but I wanna let him go.
“We’re not going to try to stifle him in any way as far as his creativity. It’ll be a back and forth here but he just likes playing. He scores a goal last night, empty netter, exhibition game, and it’s like it’s Game 7 and I love that about him, what he brings and I think it rubs off on the team.”
It’s true that Tortorella demands a certain style of play from most of his players – if not all – but he’s also smart enough to understand that it doesn’t have to work on everybody and specific players need to be freed up and do what they do best and in this case, he’s allowing Michkov to breathe a breath of fresh air into a dilapidated offense while also teaching him the nuances of defense, forechecking, and 200-foot play.
Which brings us to Jett Luchanko who surprised everyone from draft night to the official announcement of the Opening Night rosters. The 13th overall pick from this year’s draft went from being slightly unknown to the team’s top centre prospect to one of the team’s best prospects at the rookie camp to impressing so much during the preseason slate that he edged out Noah Cates for the third line centre position.
It is an unknown at the moment what the Flyers actual plan with Luchanko is. but they have a 9-game trial on hand to see how he does, how he fits in against actual NHLers, and they are expected to give him every possible opportunity to succeed until they have to make a decision to either keep him and burn the first year of his entry-level contract or send him back to Guelph for further development.
Luchanko has been practicing with Joel Farabee and Bobby Brink on the third line as well as the second power play unit with Brink, Farabee, Tyson Foerster, and Egor Zamula.
From the onset you can already see some changes from last year’s power play with Sean Couturier, Cam York, and Travis Sanheim not included. The Flyers power play has finished dead last in 3 consecutive seasons, which set an infamous NHL record last year. Rocky Thompson should be under immense pressure coming into the season but he’s been given a lifeline in Michkov and Luchanko to spark an otherwise dead man advantage.
The injection of youth in the top-9 is going to give the Flyers one of their better forward groups in recent years. There are certainly a lot of question marks surrounding the play and health of Couturier, whether or not Foerster and Brink can take that next step in their sophomore seasons, or if Michkov and Luchanko can produce at the highest level – even early on in their careers.
However, their preseason showings should alleviate some of those questions. Luchanko might not have scored or produced the numbers that Michkov did, but he played a sound 200-foot game while also exhibiting the traits that made him a late riser ahead of the 2024 NHL Entry Draft.
Many pundits and analysts had Luchanko going late in the first round, perhaps even at the start of the second round, but he slowly rose in the final weeks and was expected to be selected in the 15-20 range. The Flyers certainly saw something in his game that they couldn’t resist despite some more established prospects still being available ahead of him and now he represents just 1 of 2 players from his draft class to make the Opening Night rosters – alongside the number one overall pick in Macklin Celebrini.
Michkov’s preseason should also not be scoffed at or forgotten, despite playing against “lesser opponents”. He has been a vibrant offensive piece dating back to his junior years at the international level as well as the KHL. His numbers were jaw-dropping and at times matched or exceeded Connor Bedard, and he set many records as a junior player in the KHL over the last 2 seasons.
His rookie season is going to be one for the ages and should put him in the upper echelon in franchise history. Mikael Renberg’s 82 points in 83 games in 1993-94 will probably be off limits, but Michkov will certainly finish within the top-10 and could look to inch his way into the top-5 if everything clicks from the beginning. However, it’s a stacked list with Dave Poulin (76 points) in 2nd, Eric Lindros (75 points in 61 games) and Brian Propp (75 points) tied for 3rd, and Ron Flockhart (72 points) in 5th.
The Flyers were almost a playoff team last year until a disastrous collapse near the end of the season forced them to miss out by a few points. They had a relatively quiet offseason and are essentially running it back with the same team while adding in two very good young prospects. We know Michkov is sticking around for the entire season and even if Luchanko returns to Guelph in the OHL, the 9-game trial bodes very well for his chances of sticking around full-time in 2025-26.
It will be interesting to see how Tortorella configures his roster and lineup on a game-by-game basis, but the veteran bench boss is as excited as anyone of the prospects of his team in 2024-25. He gets a lot of slack for some of his decisions and comments but he has done a stand-up job with most of the core pieces – if not all of them. Certainly the benching and healthy scratches for Morgan Frost and Couturier were questionable when they exceeded a certain a limit, however we’ve seen players like Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Sanheim, and York take much needed strides in their development.
They will need players like Couturier, Farabee, Tippett, Konecny, and Frost to step up offensively on a consistent basis, but perhaps the insertion of two rookies is what was required to get their offensive jam back.
2024-25 is going to be an exciting year for a team that has lacked excitement and potential for quite some time.
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