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Flyers Fans vs. Flyers Beat Writers is a Rivalry to Keep an Eye on in 2026
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This Kevin Kurz article got a bunch of replies:
The story is not particularly incendiary. It starts by pointing out that the goaltending against the Lightning stunk, that the power play continues to stink, and that the Flyers are battling some injuries in the forward corps.
It then goes on to say this:
But it was also two more wildly ineffective games for winger Matvei Michkov, who now hasn’t scored a goal in a manned net since Nov. 29 — 19 games ago for him — and is sitting on just nine for the season in 43 games. His only goal over that span was an empty-netter on Dec. 22.
The two-game set against the Lightning was a prime chance for Michkov to step up and assert himself with the team short some bodies due to injury. He was promoted to the top line with Christian Dvorak and Trevor Zegras for Saturday’s game due to Travis Konecny being out, but that experiment didn’t last all that long.
Michkov was also his typical careless self with the puck that night, too. In the second period on Saturday, an errant Michkov pass in the neutral zone was intercepted by the Lightning, eventually resulting in a dangerous scoring chance by Charles-Edouard D’Astous. Early in the third period, another turnover at the offensive blue line ended up in the back of the Flyers’ net, courtesy of Gage Goncalves.
Michkov hasn’t been great this season. He didn’t show up to camp in shape, which the organization has made abundantly clear. He was reportedly dealing with an ankle injury at the same time, and then you throw in the adjustment to a new head coach and new system and that’s a lot for a young kid to handle.
At the same time, Michkov is a skill player who has been stuck playing left wing on the third line and has had very little time with Trevor Zegras and Travis Konecny and the few guys on this roster who can match his playmaking and creativity level. Meantime, Sean Couturier gets 17 minutes a night and Christian Dvorak gets a contract extension. So Flyers fans, starved of a superstar for decades, look at the situation and think that Rick Tocchet is trying to turn Michkov into a grinder by jamming the 200-foot square peg into the 200-foot round hole. Michkov is not, and never will be, a Selke candidate, as fans point out the corresponding decline from inherited Tocchet skill players, for instance, Elias Pettersson, who regressed every season in Vancouver, from 102 points, to 89, to 45.
So half of this is on the player. Michkov has to work during the Olympic break, get his fitness level up and commit to finishing the season strong. At the same time, it’s on the organization to ask themselves if bringing in Tocchet was the best decision, and if it makes sense for the players to adapt to the coach or the coach to adapt to the players. It’s a tale as old as time itself.
As always, more than one thing can be true.
What’s curious is that the inordinate amount of Michkov talk has created this thing where a portion of the fan base thinks the beat writers are singling out the player, that they’re shilling for the front office as part of some old boys club type of a thing, a classic Flyers trope that has been true at points in the not-too-distant past. They think Tocchet and Danny Briere are putting out the bat signal for Kurz and Anthony San Filippo and Russell Joy and all of these other guys to hammer the Russian who doesn’t speak English and doesn’t play “the right way.” The beats will then insist that there’s nothing biased or nefarious going on, that the player simply has underperformed and deserves the criticism. Fans typically respond with something like, “when is the hit piece on Coots and his five goals coming out?“, and around the sun we go.
It just goes to show how hungry Flyers fans are. They’ve watched shit hockey for years. Can you really blame them for getting riled up about the dude who scored 63 points as a rookie and showed flashes that we haven’t seen in a decade? No, of course not. The impatience is totally understood, but it’s creating an accusatory and aggressive environment, one that is Eagles-esque in how rabid and frenetic people are behaving. It’s a little toxic. You get the sense that this can only be settled like Survivor Series. The fans pick four of their own to fight four beat writers in the ring. If the fans win, Matvei Michkov starts on the top line for the rest of the season with Zegras and Dvo. If the beats win, Michkov goes to the AHL.
Who dares wins!
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com