Michkov has played more than 17 minutes for the Flyers just once since Oct. 16.
The Philadelphia Flyers still do not appear to have a clear or cohesive plan when it comes to utilizing Matvei Michkov and harnessing his talents.
Michkov, 21, has seen his sporadic offensive production come in spurts this season. The Russian phenom scored against Boston on Thursday night and racked up two goals and an assist against Colorado on Jan. 23, but for all his skills, still sits at 28 points on the season.
In Thursday's game against Boston, one where the Flyers trailed for all but the first 9:49, Michkov received just 12:49 of ice time--the least of any Flyers player besides Nick Deslauriers (12:12).
In the Flyers' very next game against Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon, Michkov played a season-low 10:21, still ahead of only Deslauriers (10:21) and Garnet Hathaway (9:02).
To spell it out, the Flyers are using their 2023 No. 7 overall draft pick like a fourth-liner and continue to pay the price offensively.
With Trevor Zegras going cold for much of the last month, Travis Konecny has been the sole consistent proprietor of offense for a team spinning its wheels and tumbling out of the playoff picture.
The Flyers are just 2-6-2 in their last 10 games and now find themselves seven points back of third in the Metropolitan Division and nine points back of the second wildcard spot; either of which would get them to the postseason.
The reality is that the Flyers are 21st in the NHL in goals per game (2.91) and 22nd in goals against per game (3.2).
Benching Michkov or limiting his ice time to play a more responsible and detailed game isn't working for the team or player, and we're about to be in February, here.
An argument can be made as to whether the Flyers coaches are having Michkov return to the bench early, or if the 21-year-old is doing that on his own accord, since the shift totals are generally not too far off from those of his teammates who double as penalty killers.
Either way, isn't that bad? That the coaching staff either wants Michkov to keep his shifts short, or Michkov himself is either actively avoiding the possibility of making a mistake or doesn't feel he can make a difference?
The state of Michkov's athletic conditioning has been a point of contention, well, training camp, but as I said above, it's about to be February. He's not a fast skater anyway, and his entire game is built on making dexterous plays in small areas or in open space.
It would be hard to believe that his conditioning is so poor that his average 5-on-5 shift length against Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon was 31 seconds, according to Natural Stat Trick, which was comfortably lower than virtually every other Flyers forward.
Sean Couturier, who is not a world-renowned skater, averaged a 47-second shift at 5-on-5, second only to Travis Konecny's 48-second average.
Regardless of which of the three points above is the most accurate or believable, Michkov has objectively regressed in a season where the Flyers had much greater aspirations, both on a player development level and on the team level.
The best use of the remaining three months of the season would be remedying the worsening issues at hand while developing a plan to start over in the offseason.