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Chris Pronger Had the Most Reasonable Takes on Matvei Michkov and the Flyers’ Rebuild
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Chris Pronger talked about Matvei Michkov and the Flyers’ rebuild with the Tocchet lovers at Chiclets:
“Number one, I think the buildup for this player has been, not quite (Ivan) Demidov-like, but very close. They’re looping into the fact that he’s going to be the savior. He may be. He isn’t right now. I’ve been through it myself as an 18-year-old, high pick, lots of pressure. You need to be coached. You need to be developed. You need maturity. The kid came in out of shape, we’ve heard him talk about it. I came in out of shape. There’s a lot of parallels. But you still have to coach the kid and you still have to teach him how to be a pro, teach him expectations. Playing in Russia and playing in the NHL are completely different. It’s not that you’re trying to take away his skill. You’re trying to acclimate him to what playing in the NHL is like. Since 2012, (the Flyers) have been in what’s called a rebuild for what seems like 12 years, and I think they’re frustrated and want the rebuild to be over, but they didn’t go about the rebuild properly. And now every time they say rebuild, they’re like, ‘but we have our guy.’ And by the way, I don’t know any team that rebuilds with a winger. You rebuild up the middle. Center, D, goalie. I know you picked the best player available, and clearly he was the best player, but you know, okay, he came in out of shape, get him to work out. Teach him that this is how you need to prepare, this is what the NHL is about. The biggest problem with this situation is the kid’s Russian. He doesn’t speak very good English. And so there’s a disconnect between the player and it looks like on the bench him and Tocchet are always arguing. No, he’s trying to communicate, and it takes longer because there’s the disconnect in the language. Could he play him more? Yeah, I’m sure he could. You can say that about a lot of guys.”
Pronger would be a good person to have in the “organ-I-zation” if we can handle another former Flyer in the ranks. He seems like a guy who gets it. No lies detected in this entire paragraph, though the one thing that does make you laugh is that Michkov had 63 points as a rookie while playing 16:41 on average in 80 regular season games, and now we’re hearing that he has to learn the NHL game, it’s different than the KHL, etc. He seemed to do just fine under Torts last season, so either he forgets everything he learned from his rookie year (crippling amnesia, perhaps), or his mom is feeding him so much Russian food that he has ballooned into a UFC heavyweight with the cardio of a sports talk radio host.
But yeah, you gotta rebuild with a 1C, 1D, and franchise goaltender. The Flyers don’t have any of those things. They have 0 of the 3. Porter Martone is coming, maybe one of the young draft picks pans out, but there’s not an identifiable, linear path to Cup contention at this particular point in time.
Always liked Pronger, especially when he took that puck from the Blackhawks to put it in the trash while telling Ben Eager to fuck off (paraphrasing):
Q: What happened?
Pronger: I couldn’t hear him, I don’t speak gibberish,” said Pronger, who picked up a misconduct penalty at the very end and got into it with Eager.
Where’s the puck, Pronger was asked.
“It’s in the garbage,” Pronger replied. “Where it belongs.”
You shot a towel at Eager when he complained?
“So what,” Pronger replied.
You’re collecting pucks now?
“Why not? What’s wrong? It’s sitting there. What else is gonna happen to it? It’s sitting there. Sure, why not. You got a problem with that?”
Are you gonna sell it on eBay?
“I don’t know. Apparently, it got him upset. So I guess it worked, didn’t it? It’s too bad. I guess little things amuse little minds.”
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