July 16, 2024
Nick Tricome/PhillyVoice
The Flyers took space on the LED billboards in Center City, Philadelphia welcoming top prospect Matvei Michkov to the team.
The Flyers are caught in the slow part of the NHL offseason between a free agency period where they weren't set to do much in to begin with and the start of training camp in September.
Matvei Michkov is signed, but isn't in Philadelphia yet – although they are getting ready for him.
There are some other notes to catch up on, too, so without further ado...
Erik Johnson and Garnet Hathaway are staying put.
Johnson re-signed with the Flyers on a one-year, $1.1 million deal a couple of weeks ago, and then Hathaway followed soon after with a two-year, $4.8 million extension to keep him in Philadelphia through 2027.
Johnson, an adaptable defenseman, is entering year 17. Hathaway, a hard-skating depth winger, is going into year 10.
They know they're not the future. However, both said they wanted to stick around to keep building the bridge toward it.
"This is where I want to be. This is where I want to play," Hathaway said over a Zoom call with the media on Monday.
"I think even more than I knew last year, I know now how high-end of an organization this is from top to bottom," the 32-year old continued. "From Dan Hilfery, our ownership, our front office, to the coaching staff, to the medical guys, to the equipment managers, and then the guys in the room, it's one that I really just want to be around, and you can see it. You can see that striving for more, just that attitude that no one's satisfied with overachieving like people think we did last year. It's planting that step to be more successful the next day. That's something that I want to be a part of."
Hathaway signed on ahead of last season and quickly became an established voice in the locker room who backed it up with a high-energy game on the ice. He'll likely stay in the Flyers' bottom six on a line with center Ryan Poehling, while helping to bring the younger forwards along as pros – Poehling, Tyson Foerster, Bobby Brink, and now Michkov.
Johnson will be coming back to do the same for the defensemen, expecting to do so in a veteran seventh D-man role similar to what Marc Staal occupied last year. Basically, the 36-year old will start the season on the opening night roster, but as the year wears on, he'll gradually see his playing time reduce as the plan gives way to Egor Zamula, Emil Andrae, Ronnie Attard, and maybe even Hunter McDonald as the younger guys behind him.
And he's all right with that.
"Being that seventh D, I'm totally comfortable with," Johnson, who was originally acquired at the trade deadline, told the media over another Zoom call last week. "I'm here to support Cam York, Jamie Drysdale, [Travis Sanheim], [Rasmus Ristolainen], [Nick Seeler], all those guys, Zamula...So I'm here for them no matter what they need. I'm here for whatever is asked of me. I'm going to do it."
They'll be there to help Michkov get familiar, too, once he arrives.
Both commented on it.
"He knows that I'm here for him to answer any questions," said Johnson, who also added that he's been going back and forth with Michkov a bit through Instagram. "I'm excited to work with him. He's a high-end packagage, tons of skill. It looks like Philly has a great one on their hands for a long time."
"I haven't spoken to him yet, but I've heard there's rumblings it won't be long until we maybe meet face to face," Hathaway said.
And Drysdale, who was out in Ocean City last week as part of the Flyers' summer Community Caravan: "I heard he's a heck of a player and I've seen a few things," he told NBC Sports Philadelphia's Ashlyn Sullivan. "So I know myself and the rest of the team are just real excited to get him here and get going."
“It shows on his end he’s been excited… it’s a priority of his to get over here and start playing for the #Flyers.” - Jamie Drysdale on Matvei Michkov coming to Philadelphia. pic.twitter.com/5OzINKP9I6
— Ashlyn Sullivan (@ashlynrsullivan) July 10, 2024
Michkov Mania is ramping up. Just take a look for yourself down Market Street when you get a chance.
I too have visited the Michkov billboards by 12th and Market. https://t.co/DxHy6c2Bxu pic.twitter.com/eQefiAnbYa
— Nick Tricome (@itssnick) July 11, 2024
Staying on Drysdale, at the end of the year he revealed that he wasn't entirely healthy throughout it and would need some kind of surgery in the offseason, but was dodgy about the exact nature of it.
While he was in Ocean City, Drysdale told NHL.com's Adam Kimmelman that he went under the knife to address a sports hernia in April and has since returned to skating.
He said he's aiming to be all clear for the start of training camp in September.
"I stayed in Philly the whole time pretty much after the year, got surgery done and started the rehab right away," Drysdale told Kimmelman. "I've just been training there, staying on top of it and feeling good."
The 22-year old defenseman was the key piece in the return for the notorious Cutter Gauthier trade with Anaheim from back in January.
The smooth-skating and dynamic blueliner was quickly embraced by the Flyers fan base upon his debut, but lost about a month after a collision in open-ice against Pittsburgh and only finished his initial Philadelphia run with five points and a minus-18 rating in 24 games played.
Going back further into his Anaheim days, Drysdale has a deeper injury history to dispel from a torn labrum that cost him heavy time across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons.
When he's fully healthy, Drysdale is a talented skater who the Flyers are hoping will be a puck-moving, offense-generating force on their blue line for years to come.
But staying fully healthy is going to be a major point of emphasis for him this season.
Wade Allison's hockey career is moving on to the KHL.
Last week, HC Barys in Kazakhstan announced it had signed the former Flyers winger, who once held promise as a potential diamond-in-the-rough prospect but eventually just fell out of the picture.
Барыс сообщает о заключении контракта с Уэйдом Эллисоном. Одностороннее соглашение с канадским нападающим рассчитано на один сезон до 31 мая 2025 года. pic.twitter.com/GeWPvPJvMw
— ХК «Барыс» (@AstanaBarys) July 12, 2024
Allison, who was taken by former GM Ron Hextall in the second round of the 2016 NHL Draft, is a hard-nosed forward who skates like a heat-seeking missile, but his 6'2" frame could never hold up to that playstyle.
He was on the bubble of cracking the Flyers' roster for the past several years, and actually did make it to the opening night roster for the 2022-23 season, but at every turn, injuries – either from a check gone wrong or a hard crash into the boards – always stopped him short.
At a certain point, head coach John Tortorella expressed frustration in Allison's highly limited availability, hammering on the fact that he was always hurt.
At the next training camp, other up-and-coming forwards like Foerster and Brink leapfrogged him in the development timeline, and soon after, he was stuck in AHL limbo.
This past March, current GM Danny Brière dealt Allison to Nashville for a chance at a fresh start – at the cost of a failed waiver on Denis Gurianov – but he didn't go any further than the Predators' AHL affiliate in Milwaukee.
So now the 26-year old is headed overseas, with his Flyers legacy, as it stands, being another whiff on the part of Hextall stemming from a front office tenure that, in many ways, the organization is still recovering from.
One more from last week, though a sad one.
Former Phantom and Philadelphia native Tony Voce passed away at age 43, the Flyers announced last Monday.
Voce put together an impressive collegiate career at Boston College in the early 2000s, then returned home to play for the Phantoms – back when they were still in Philadelphia and playing at the Spectrum – for three seasons, including that memorable lockout year run to the Calder Cup in 2005, when he was a 28-goal scorer for the team.
As a local to Philadelphia's hockey community, tributes quickly poured in from all over, including among former Flyers and Phantoms teammates.
And perhaps the best encapsulation of what Voce meant to Philadelphia hockey is Nasty Knuckles' recent tribute show that went up on Friday, where hosts and former Flyers equipment manager Derek Settlemyre and enforcer Riley Cote recount old stories from Voce's friends, a group that included old Phantoms teammates Neil Little, Josh Gratton, and coach John Stevens.
Check out the episode below or over on YouTube HERE.
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