The air was different in Voorhees on Wednesday morning.
The press room within the Flyers Training Center was more packed with cameras and recorders than it had been in quite some time, and for the first time in what felt like a long, long time, general manager Danny Brière sat in front of the media alongside a clear, genuine, and major step forward for the organization.
Matvei Michkov is here.
The highlight-reel, goal-scoring phenom out of Russia, who fell to the Flyers at No. 7 overall in the NHL Draft just over a year ago, is stateside.
In a Flyers polo shirt and hat, the 19-year old entered the room and fielded questions from the media, too. Then he put his orange and black jersey on — for the second time since that draft last summer in Nashville as he was sure to note.
For Michkov, his dream of playing in the NHL is about to be realized. For the Flyers, they have the guy that they're staking a massive part of their rebuild ambitions on – and a whole lot sooner than expected. And for the fans, who have only known mediocre hockey and resulting apathy for the better part of a decade, they have their new star to latch on to.
The rest of the team is still going to need time, but a crucial piece of the puzzle is there now. The Flyers are on the path to relevance again. They can get this right.
"You know, when we drafted him last year, we never thought this would happen," said Brière, who drafted Michkov knowing that he already had a three-year contract with SKA St. Petersburg in the Russian KHL signed at the time, but also bet on the idea that the Flyers were in a position to be able to wait that out.
"Part of the reason why he fell to us – because he would have gone a lot earlier, we knew that – we felt we were in a position to be able to wait the three years for him to come," Brière continued. "So to have this opportunity, it's amazing to get him early at 19 years old, to learn under a coach like [John Tortorella] and the coaching staff that we have. I think it's a great opportunity for him and for us to have him early."
And to get the ball rolling toward greater.
"The main idea always was to win," Michkov said through translator and team consultant Slava Kuznetsov. "You should drive to win and [I'm] here to help the team win."
Rumblings that Michkov was progressing toward a sooner-than-expected arrival to the NHL began in May. SKA St. Petersburg execs took interviews in Russia where they openly discussed potential paths for Michkov to get to the Flyers early, then into June, rumors started swirling that Michkov's representation was working on terminating his KHL contract, until confirmation eventually – and suddenly – came in that he would indeed be NHL and Philadelphia-bound for this coming season, all while Brière, president of hockey ops Keith Jones, and team governor Dan Hilferty kept as coy as they could.
On July 1, Michkov signed his entry-level contract, though he wasn't on a timeline to be able to make it to the team's prospect development camp held that same week.
But then on Tuesday morning, his flight in from Russia landed at JFK International in New York, with Brière and Jones there to welcome him. He was down in Voorhees soon after, fully aware, he acknowledged on Wednesday, that fans were anticipating this every step of the way.
"It's unreal how the fans react and how welcomed [I] felt here coming in," Michkov said. "At the same time, the main idea right now is getting ready and showing really good hockey for the fans, play the game right."
In many ways, he is very much the face of the Flyers' rebuilding strategy under Brière and Jones – the potentially elite, game-changing star.
"Savior" was another word thrown around, but Brière met that thought with hesitation. There's still a lot more work to do.
"We don't see him as a savior," Brière said. "That's certainly not what we're putting on his shoulders. He's 19 years old. He's coming in to learn, to expand his game, and obviously, we hope that the sky's the limit for him. But we're certainly not expecting him to be the savior of this team. We're building a team that's gonna have many pieces to work together, and we're hoping that he becomes one of them."
But to have him here now? It definitely presents a huge break for the Flyers during a two-year stretch where they've seemingly had few, despite overachieving into a near playoff push this past season – between the Cutter Gauthier trade, Carter Hart's leave to face sexual assault charges in the 2018 Hockey Canada scandal, Ivan Fedotov's arduous road to finally getting to Philadelphia late in the season, and now high uncertainty surrounding goalie prospect Alexei Kolosov's status in Belarus as training camp nears.
"It's a great break for us, for the organization, to have him early and to have him at 19," Brière said. "I know I've said this a few times before, but the chance for him to learn under Torts – we all know that he's gifted offensively. Very, very talented, but he's going to have the chance to learn under Torts to play the other side of the ice as well, and that gets me excited. He's going to get that base early on."
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Michkov said he still has to meet with Tortorella though, and while he has been in contact with a few players already, like Ivan Fedotov and Erik Johnson – who said he reached out via Instagram last week – he's looking forward to meeting the rest of his teammates face to face.
Getting adjusted to a new team, league, city, and country entirely is going to be a process, too, but Brière said that the Flyers brought in a tutor to get him more comfortable with English, and that Fedotov and Egor Zamula as fellow Russians, and long-established veterans like Johnson, Nic Deslauriers and Garnet Hathaway will be vital in helping him get comfortable within the locker room and with learning how to be a pro in the NHL.
"On that, we also showed him the video of the fight of Nic in the Rangers game last year," Brière quipped. "We told him he's his new best friend."
Brière also mentioned that the plan is to have Michkov's mother Maria and his younger brother Prohor eventually make the move over to help in the transition to a new country.
He's here now, but it's all a lot happening at once.
The start of the season will be here soon – one that will have much more anticipation for the Flyers in a while – and while Michkov has his personal goals for his rookie year, he wanted to keep those ones to himself.
But he did say this: "The first plan is for the team to make the playoffs and get comfortable in the playoffs.
And in the long-term setup for much greater...
"Help the team win the Stanley Cup, all Cups possible," Michkov said.
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