Matvei Michkov isn’t satisfied despite an impressive rookie season: ‘I could have scored more’

Matvei Michkov had the best Flyers rookie season this century.

That’s still not good enough for the 20-year-old winger.

“Everything, every aspect of the game needs to be improved,” Michkov said Saturday through a translator. “There’s no skill, nothing in my game that I’m 100% on yet.”

» READ MORE: Matvei Michkov likely won’t win the Calder Trophy, but his rookie season has been a gigantic success for the Flyers

Michkov scored 26 goals, leading all rookies, and his 63 points tied for second with top overall pick Macklin Celebrini. He was the first Flyers rookie to score 60 points in a season since Mikael Renberg scored 82 points in 1993-94, and he looks up for being the centerpiece of the Flyers’ rebuild.

But as high as fan expectations are for Michkov, he has even higher expectations for himself.

“He’s probably the one guy that I’ve played with in my career that, he wants to be the best player in the NHL,” winger Travis Konecny said on Friday. “He believes that he can be, and you can’t teach that. That’s just something that he wants and he believes in, and that’s a powerful thing.”

Despite some tension with John Tortorella over his defensive play, which led to benchings and scratches at various points, Michkov still cited Tortorella as one of the best coaches he’d ever played for and said that he will take “a lot” away from his time playing for him.

During his exit interview with general manager Danny Brière, Michkov came armed with a list of everything he wanted to achieve over the next few seasons, filled with comps from across the league as models for why other players have success and how he can replicate it.

» READ MORE: Flyers exit interviews: Sean Couturier felt ‘pushed aside’ by John Tortorella; Cam York excited to play ‘freer’

One of his hopes next season is to play more minutes. Michkov averaged 16 minutes, 41 seconds of ice time, more than three minutes fewer than Celebrini.

“If I will play more minutes, I will feel comfortable,” Michkov said.

His other offseason goal? To become more comfortable speaking English. And, of course, to get some rest.

Brière called Michkov’s mind “special,” and said that the rookie far surpassed all of the goal and point expectations he had for him.

Michkov, never satisfied, disagreed.

“I could have scored more, not happy with my result”

Sam Ersson came into 2024-25 looking to solidify himself as the Flyers’ starting goalie. It didn’t exactly work out that way.

Ersson put up his career-worst season with a 3.14 goals-against average and an .883 save percentage. As a team, the Flyers had a league-worst .879 save percentage and fifth-worst 3.45 GAA.

“There’s a lot of good things from my season that I can take with me,” Ersson said. “[One of the] things I need to do better is to find a way to be a little bit more consistent, especially when it’s in the later part of the season. I think I’m still trying to find ways to manage energy levels and stuff, to find a way to perform at a consistent high level throughout the year.”

Ersson, 25, acknowledged his best stretch of the year came between the Christmas break and the 4 Nations Face-Off break from Dec. 28 to Feb. 8, when he posted a .920 save percentage in 14 appearances. But Ersson, who lost steam near the end of the season amid 47 appearances, might be better served as a tandem goalie, where he and another netminder can pick up one another when they’re struggling.

“I feel a responsibility in those situations where you’re going to need a big performance to kind of help the team to get out of that slump, and I didn’t feel like I came up with that [after the 4 Nations break], which is hard,” Ersson said. “I definitely feel like in those situations, I’ve got to step up better.”

» READ MORE: Despite a disappointing season, the Flyers insist they’re not too ‘far away’ from returning to the playoffs

Brière noted that while the goalies struggled this season, they were not solely responsible for the poor statistics and the number of goals conceded, and that part of the blame lies with poor defensive play from the skaters. But if the team has a chance to improve at the position, it will “seriously consider it.”

Ivan Fedotov, who played his first full season of hockey since 2021-22, struggled in his first season in North America but said he is ready to compete for an NHL job in camp next season.

The Flyers’ power play was the league’s third-worst in 2024-25 and scored on just 14.5% of its opportunities. After firing Tortorella, the power play ticked up a bit under Brad Shaw, connecting on six of 24 opportunities, a 25% clip. That’s a tiny nine-game sample size, but over a full season, that would be good for seventh in the league.

Late in the year, the Flyers experimented with a five-forward power play, with Bobby Brink at the point, which helped them score more goals.

“I hadn’t really done that before,” Brink said. “It’s nice touching the puck a lot up there and being able to see the whole ice and direct the power play, so I enjoyed it.”

The Flyers also allowed four shorthanded goals over that nine-game stretch, after allowing just six in the 73 games prior, But Brière was happy to see the experimentation after a season of struggle with the power play.

“I was really excited to see our guys think outside the box at the end, when they went five forwards,” Brière said. “I thought that was fantastic to see something different. That group actually gave us some different looks. I thought they moved better. They were able to make more plays, more puck possession inside the zone. We probably should have gone that way earlier in the season, or checked it out.”

Jumping from last in the league in 2023-24 to third-worst in 2024-25 is a baby step, but Brière is expecting a larger jump forward next year as the Flyers’ young skill players continue to develop.