The Hockey PDOcast - Deep Diving the Flyers 5v5 Play, Public Models vs. Private Models, and Michkov’s Improvement

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Charlie O'Connor to breakdown the disparity between the Flyers metrics according public vs. private models, their 5v5 play vs. their power play, Michkov's first 25 games vs. the most recent 25, and Danny Briere's ideal goals for what he'd like to do vs. where the team is at for the second straight season. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

2015. It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich. And joining me today is my good buddy, Charlie O'Connor. Charlie, what's going on, man? Hey, it's good to be on the show. I've been meaning to do this for a while. We've been trading messages back and forth. I wanted to get you on for our annual Flyers deep dive. We're finally getting to it today. Now, we're going to talk about one of the clubs that's in the mix for the Eastern Conference Wildcard position. which doesn't narrow it down at all because pretty much every team in the Eastern Conference is at the time of recording on Friday,

there's currently eight teams that are separated by grand total of five points ranging from the Penguins at 48 to the Lightning at 53, and that doesn't even include the Islanders who are down at 45, but they have about two or three games in hand on pretty much every one of those teams. So we're in for quite a wild ride here. I don't envy anyone who has to put together

any sort of playoff probabilities or the betting markets trying to decipher how to sort this out because it's a mess. And seemingly every single night, two of these teams involved are playing each other. And it could be a three-point game, could go either direction as we've been seeing lately. So it's going to be a fun thing to track. We're going to deep dive the pliers today, though, the team that you cover on a daily basis. And I want to get into where we're at kind of at the 50 game mark or so here. In some ways, it's a bit of a extension, I guess, of what we saw from this team in the first three-quarter.

quarters of last year or so in terms of the 5-1-5 play, some of the struggles with both percentages in terms of finishing, especially in the power play and goal tending. But we've also seen them include Matt Vaymichkhov into the lineup, and we have a lot to talk about with him as well. Where are you out with this team right now in terms of the progression you've seen this season, whether there's been legitimate strides from the club we saw last year and kind of how people should be viewing this team right now? Yeah, I think there have been. It's just it's a tough team to analyze because I think it is at its core a pretty good hockey team. It's just a team that has a couple very obvious glaring flaws. And that seems like a good thing when you say it

on its own. It's like, oh, well, then just fix those flaws. The problem is that those flaws are the hardest things to fix. Now, I guess you could say goaltending isn't that hard. You say that to any Flyers fan who lived through the last 30 plus years of history, though, and they would say it's incredibly hard to fix. But in theory, you know, yeah, you go out and do what the devils did. You go out, you get Jacob Markstrom, and then maybe you can turn that around real quick if you really want to. However, they also have a big problem at center. They don't have a clear cut one C. They really don't even have a clear cut two C, I would say at this point. Center is a dramatic weakness. And as General Manager Daniel Breyer said a couple days ago in his midseason presser,

no one wants to trade quality centers, which is fair. So they have a dramatic weakness down the middle, which hurts, I think, everything from the power play to their ability to finish, to set up their wingers, to develop their wingers, and to the kind of offensive threats that they hope they can become over the long term. So that's a big problem. And then their defense is actually quite deep. I think they have a lot of buying to good defensemen.

they don't have that one guy who can really carry the load and be a tough minutes control play kind of guy. Travis Sanheim is probably the closest. He's obviously playing for Team Canada this year. He had a really good start. He's dropped off a bit, I would say, as the year has gone on. But overall, he has been a perfectly solid number two, number three quality defense. But I think he's kind of in that realm. I would say first part of the year, he very much played like, yeah,

he's a he's a number two on a contender now he's playing more like in that borderline which is probably what he is they don't have that one really great guy at the top and again the teams that have those guys aren't willing to give them up yeah so what the flyers are is a thing that is very well coached they get a lot out of the players they have they are i think their depth is underrated they are they're deep up front they don't have i i would say in terms of the guys who are playing regularly, they don't have any bad players. And I think that qualifies for both the forwards and even the defenseman. The one guy who may be qualified as bad, the first two, three months of the year was

Yeager Zimula. He's been playing better recently. He had a really poor first period last night against the Rangers. But overall, over the last maybe four or five weeks, he's been pretty solid. So they don't have bad players. What they don't have enough of is really, really good players. You have Travis Kinectu's taking a step forward to be sure he's looking like he's establishing himself as a maybe not superstar, but I think very much in that second tier of, you know,

maybe lowercase S star. He's on pace for, you know, 92, 93 points this year. And then they have Maffe Mishkov, who I think can get there. But beyond that, they don't really have guys who look like true top of the lineup, impact players on cup contenders. And while I think this team is a good team in a lot of ways, it's hard to map out a path where they become a great team unless some things really break their way. The reason why I'm so fascinated by them is because I feel like them, probably more so than any other team in the league,

represents maybe this dynamic shift or paradigm shift we've seen in the NHL where maybe if we were talking five, seven years ago, you'd look at this team and you'd look at all of their five-on-five metrics, in particular. And you'd say, this is a really good team borderline contender because some of especially the past 25 games that we're going to get into, a lot of their shares are in that mid-50s range that we associated with like legitimate cup contenders and Stanley Cup winners in that early 2010s mid-2010s era. The issue is that I feel like we've gravitated towards this position in the league now that's so dictated by talent at the top end of the lineup and players, who can determine outcomes, both in terms of making saves and also turning shots into goals

or chances into goals, that those players have become even more valued and important. And so a lot of these teams now can overcome, as long as they have a certain baseline at 515, as long as their efficiency is good enough, they can win a lot of games, just playing that type of hockey, right? It feels like it's changed quite a bit in terms of the landscape. The Flyers for two years now have been on that border where, they have the 515 baseline, but they don't have the requisite talent, at least for now, Mitch Collins obviously changes that a little bit and represents a certain level of hope moving forward.

But as currently constructed, I feel like there's no real reason to believe that it's going to fundamentally change unless the personnel involve change. Now, as you mentioned, with the goaltending, and we're going to get into that a lot here today, in theory, it's a thing where it's like, all right, pretty much any goalie in a certain situation or for a certain year can become really good. we're going on a long enough time now where that hasn't unfortunately happened for the Flyers. And when you're in that spot, it feels like it's just a never-ending cycle and like a loop that you're never going to get out of. But this is a team right now that has 50 points in 49 games. They have an implied playoff probability of about 19 percent. As we said, it's probably not the best timing for you and I to be doing this deep dive because they're fresh off of the 6-1

loss at MSG to the Rangers, which is probably their worst game in a while. Now, I would say that final score line is probably misleading a little bit. well because there's a couple late goals. The Flyers still got a pretty good share of their own chances at 515. They just unfortunately, one team had Igor Shusirkin, and it wasn't them. But prior to that, they had this six-game stretch where they went 5-0-1, had wins against teams they're directly competing with, like the Wings and Islanders, but also top teams in the conference like the Devils and Panthers.

And so that's kind of what I wanted to talk about it with you today and sort it out. And in particular, the goaltending, because I had Kevin Woodley on earlier this week. and he dropped this nugget during our conversation that behind or under the hood, I guess, clear site analytics had some sort of stat where it's like Flyers, goalies have an expected say percentage this season of 860, which is obviously comically low. And then you and I were chatting about in the DMs

and kind of trying to sort through it. And I think both you and I came to the conclusion that we agree that that doesn't really pass the smell test necessarily for me. Now the reason why I find it so interesting is because, it's so diametrically opposed in terms of the light it paints the flyers defensive environment in front of those goleys, compared to a lot of the public metrics. And there's a lot of disagreement in terms of who's to blame and what the flyers are defensively.

I don't think it's an 860 environment because that seems just crazy to me. But I also am not sure they're as good defensively as maybe natural statrick or as evolving hockey would say sport logic has it kind of in the middle. So I'm curious for your take on kind of how you divvy up the blame there in terms of them having a historically low say percentage. Yeah, it is fascinating to me. And it wasn't something that came as a surprise because I had actually had a conversation with another person, not someone who works for the Flyers front office, but someone who's around the team. This is maybe about two, three weeks ago. And he had said the same thing.

I honestly think he probably got it from Kevin Woodley as well, this information about from ClearSight Analytics about the fact that the flyers expect, to save percentage was extremely low. And I had been talking for weeks about the main problem is the goaltending, that it's historically low. I believe as recently as earlier this week, things may have changed a bit over the last two or three days, but the goalies were on pace for the lowest goalie save percentage. So taking empty net goals out of the mix, lowest goalie team save percentage since the 1999-2000

Tampa Bay Lightning. So we're talking about a quarter of a century, which is wild to think that, you know, 1999 is a quarter of a century ago, but maybe I'm dating myself a bit. That said, I started to think about it more because, you know, unless that date is just incorrect, and I have no reason to think that Kevin's wrong in citing that, then there is a fairly popular black box, you know, private analytics group that is saying that it's not the goalie's fault, that it is the, it's the fault of the defense, it's the fault of the system, whatever. And I started thinking about it.

And I still don't buy that it's right. But I do think there are probably things and factors that are playing into it that maybe I wasn't giving enough credit to. The main reason why I don't think that the Flyers expect to say percentage is actually 860 is because, number one, it is extremely hard for me to accept that a John Tortorella coach team would be. actually delivering that bad results in terms of defense. I just, I cannot imagine that a man who, and look, he maybe gets too much grief for being too defensively oriented. I think he actually is much more open to taking risks and coaching the offensive side of

the game. I think he's more open to that to people give him credit for, but this is a guy who eats, sleeps and breathes defense. And if his team was actually playing defense. defense that poorly. Not only do I think it would be changed very quickly, I think he would be complaining about it every single day when he speaks to us rather than basically saying, nah, I think it's just the goaltending, which is more or less what he tells us. So I do trust his judgment there. Also, I've watched the team and I've seen the goalies, particularly

Ivan Fidoff in the beginning, Alexi Kolesoff over the last maybe month, month and a half, give up so many weak goals, that it's very hard for me to accept that, oh, no, it's just the defense. So that's tough for me to accept. And I do think that maybe that model is missing something. However, I do think that there are probably explanations for why it might be missing something.

Number one, and maybe I'm speaking out of term, because I don't know all the details of Steve Alicat, who runs ClearSite Analytics, of his model. But my understanding, and it's right there in the name, clear sight, He very much is of the opinion that goalies should be able to see all the pucks, that screens are bad, that traffic is bad, give the goalie the chance to see the puck,

and the goalie's going to be more likely to make the save. The flyers under John Twarderella are very, very focused on blocking as many shots as possible. They are. And I could see the fact that the flyers do collapse the middle so much and to such an extreme degree, and they block a ton. I believe they still lead the league in block shots. that perhaps that is juicing the expected shooting percentages of the shots that they're allowing because the flyers are so focused on blocking shots.

So that's number one. Number two, this is especially over the last two months. The flyers haven't been giving up a lot of shots. So it is possible that because they're blocking so many of the easy shots, that the only shots that they're allowing tend to be of higher quality, and that also is juicing the expected shooting percentages a bit. Now, I don't think it's to the point where on average, the shots they're allowing have an expected shooting percentage of 14%.

That strikes me as way too high. But I could see a world where maybe that model is picking up something about the difficulty of the shots that evolving hockey's expected goals model, natural statrics expect a goals model, money puck's, money puck's expect a goals model, the ones in the public sphere are not picking up. I could see that. So I'm more with you that there's probably a middle ground there that maybe the goaltending hasn't been quite as bad as I thought. But based on what I know about John Sorderella and what I know about what I've seen and what I've seen in the public data, it's hard for me to accept that the Flyers defense has actually been that bad in terms of preventing quality chances.

Yeah, evolving hockey has them with the fourth fewest expected goals against. It's only the Kings, Oilers, and Wildbetter. Natural Static has them sixth. fewest expected goals adding in the devils and islanders, Sporologic has them 19. Now, Sporologic also has them given up the third fewest, fifth fewest slot shots, and sixth fewest inner slot shots.

And so for me, it's almost, first off, the number 860 in terms of an expectation for a goalie, say, percentage, even in today's climate where the league average is 901, is just almost unfathomable in terms of how bad it would be. It would also, with that low of a volume, of like dangerous shots in terms of the high danger, areas for the math to line up, every one of those chances would essentially need to be like

at a near full expected goal essentially. So it would be really tough to make the math make sense there. But I do find it fascinating whenever there's this big of a mismatch in terms of the public versus private models. No team exemplifies that more than the Sapphires team. And as you said, they're getting historically bad goaltending. I mean, they're 30 seconds, say percentage. They're, what, 873 for the year. We haven't had a team since 2007. That low, the 2022-2020 sharks were 8-81, and they were the previous low-water mark.

The reason why this matters, though, is because you look at that underlying profile I mentioned off the top, and the last 25 games in particular since the start of December, and that's a pretty statistically significant sample size at this point. They've been one of the top five,

five-on-five teams in the league, right? Their shot shares, 54%, only Vegas. Carolina, Florida, and Edmonton are better. All of those are considered legitimate contenders. High danger chances, 58%. Expected goals share of 58%. Only the Oilers are better in both. And so, yeah, this team that's controlling large segments of play

and is getting looks at even strength and is doing a lot of the process-oriented things we look for as indicators that a team is playing the right way. And then they're just not actually getting the results because in those 25 games, they'd score 54-5-15 goals, and they've given up 54-5-1-5 goals. And they're literally breaking completely even despite all of those metrics. So I find that immensely fascinating.

I imagine Flyers fans at this point don't find it as fascinating, probably more infuriating. But I think especially for people who maybe aren't following this team on a game-to-game basis, it's pretty amazing, I guess, how like extreme all of these metrics are in terms of the ones that portray them in a very favorable light. And then the ones that portray them as being historically inept at keeping the puck out of their own net. Yeah, they are fascinating. He seems to analyze, to look at. And what is interesting to me also is kind of how they're doing. And now, again, the caveat here is these are all my observations based on obviously what

I've seen, but also mostly the public data. Now, if you believe that the Flyers goaltending actually hasn't been the problem and actually they are not doing as good of a job of preventing quality chances as the public data, then maybe their expect to goals percentage is not actually 58, 59, it's actually something far less impressive. But I'm assuming based on what I've seen with the public data and also the fact that as you mentioned, you know, shot share, shot on goal share, unblocked shot share, all that stuff is pretty strong too, that the flyers are at least a legitimately good, if not great play driving team, you know, pretty much since the start of December. Now, I've done some digging about kind of how they're doing it. And it's actually

kind of fascinating because one thing that I do during the year, it's really hard for me to do the kind of major tracking projects that I used to be able to do before I was working full-time as a beat writer covering the team on a daily basis. I used to be tracking, you know, individual player entries, individual player exits, entry defense, things like that, don't have the time to do that anymore. But what I do have the time to do and what I've been doing for the last few years is I track team level five-on-five entries and then also retrieval percentage of dump-ins.

And it gives me an idea of how the team is creating their offense in the neutral zone. It just gives me a good read. I usually am doing it like in-game. I'm keeping up with the game just to give me an understanding of how the actual possession part of the game

is playing out. And what's fascinating with the Flyers, and this even has been the case during their step up. Because start of the year, they just weren't playing that well, October and early November. They really didn't make this turn to being a really good play driving five-on-five team until I would say,

like mid-November into December, based on, you know, that lines up with what you said about December on. They don't control the middle of the ice. They don't get more entries than the other team. They don't even get more possession entries. And a possession entry is what I would consider to be either a controlled entry, because that comes with possession, or a recovered dumpin.

The other teams have been getting more possessions, raw possessions than the Flyers have at 5 on 5. The Flyers just make up for it by getting a lot more scoring chances than you would expect when they're in the offensive zone and preventing, especially preventing, a lot more scoring chances than you would expect them to be allowing. And, you know, John Torterrell has spoken a little bit about the details of their system. The Flyers do run a pretty,

aggressive 212. And I would say the 1-2-2 is probably a bit more prevalent in the in the NHL right now, but they run a 2-1-2. And one thing that Torts has been talking about from the start of the year is how important the F-3 is to their system, especially on the attack, but also tracking back, you know, through the neutral zone to provide help to the defense. In the beginning of the year, the F-3 was very inconsistent. They weren't having that forward, come back up to to protect against, basically to allow the defenseman to be very aggressive pinching down the boards to keep Pucks alive and keep offensive zone possessions going. The three forwards were hanging out, all three of them hanging out way too low in the offensive

zone. And then the defenseman couldn't pinch because they had no protections. They just had to stay up there. And then functionally, the Flyers were basically running a one-two because they couldn't take advantage of the best part of the two-12. Well, probably starting in like mid-November, the F-3 started to be a lot more consistent. And since then, the Flyers have done. a really good job of creating more chances than you would expect from their

offensively, they tighten up dramatically. Again, I guess this depends on how much you buy the public data. But based on the public data, they've done a really good job of both preventing shots, which is undeniable, and scoring chances. They've done a fantastic job of collapsing the slot. So I think the way they're doing it is it is in a way, although it's not, identical. It is in a way similar to, I believe, if I remember correctly, the sharks used to do it this way, where back in like the early to mid-2010s, where they didn't really control the entry game,

but they just owned the offensive and defensive zones. And it seems like that is what the flyers are trying to do. They're trying to get more out of their offensive zone time with an aggressive forecheck and aggressive pinches and a very, you know, constant. in flowing F3. And then in the defensive zone, they are basically saying, we'll give you the outside, but you are not getting to the interior ever.

And it's an interesting strategy because it's not one that I think feels intuitive based on the way that we've thought about the game in a lot of ways, but it's working at least by the public data so far. It is. And what's fascinating to me as a next step to this conversation, then you mentioned how,

or we just spoke about how, the public metrics and the private metrics, they're viewing their defensive system entirely differently. The same can be said offensively because last I checked, natural statrick had them 20th in the league at expected goals generated themselves offensively. Evolving hockey had them up at 15th. Sporologic has them 7th. And I think part of that is because Spore Logic puts a lot of emphasis on rush chances in particular and bakes that in more to their model in terms of how likely they are to result in goals. And much like last year, this Flyers team is tied for third in the league and rush chances,

7.3 of them per game with the stars. Only the abs and Oilers, two very explosive offenses, generate more than them. Now, this team, as we said, doesn't have the personnel in terms of the firepower and the finishing talent to maybe make the most of those opportunities the way some of these other top teams do. But the infrastructure in terms of the way they're playing and how much they're generating is there, which is encouraging. And also then tells you that, like,

while the public metrics are maybe overrating their defensive system, they're underrating their offense. So maybe it's a bit of a net neutral. So when you said earlier, like, that expected goal share I cited might not be accurate because of that disparity. It might honestly balance out and actually be pretty reflective, just baking in that they're probably better offensively than maybe we're giving them credit for. Yeah, that's fair. That is totally fair.

And one thing I want to talk about, too, about the Flyers, this is essential to understanding why they've been good at five on five, but yet they're not high in the standings. And yes, part of the story is goal-tending. But another part of the story, and you mentioned earlier in our conversation about how, you know, this Flyers team, you look at their statistical profile, especially since December and you would say they are like the teams in the early 2010s, that as analytics people, we would be saying, yeah, maybe throw some money down on them, they might be underrated. They might have a chance to be a stealth cup contender.

to me the biggest difference in terms of the NHL then versus the NHL now. And this is essential to understanding why the Flyers are not a great team despite these metrics is the importance of power plays. Back in those eras, like I'm thinking the 2011-2012 season when the Kings went on their run and they were, you know, they were the eight seed and they go, they upset the Canucks and then they go through, you know, they go through the gauntlet, they win, they pull the upset. the best power play in the league that year was at 21.6. Now the best power plays are over 30%.

And it's just, it plays into what you said earlier about how star level talent has become so important in today's game versus 10, 15 years ago because those stars can now carry a power play to extraordinary heights in comparison to where it was before. The Flyers have a horrendous power play. and their power play has been horrendous for years. That is a big part of why they are not performing as well as maybe you would think by looking at their five-on-five metrics because they don't score on the power play. And this is where you get back to the problem of do they have enough high-end talent?

Because while Travis Kinecichne is a really good player, I don't think he's a really good power play player because he creates so much of his offense on the rush. And you can't really do that as much on the power play because it's very much a half-court type of office. Now, Maffa Mishkov, I do think, will be a really good half-court offense type of player in the NHL, but I don't think he's quite there yet. But even if you have those two guys, you find a way to get Kinecti, you know, more engaged in the power play and take advantage of his obvious talents and Mishkhov gets better. I think he need more.

And right now they clearly don't have enough, but even as Mishkov improves, I think they're going to need more. And that's where the absence of high-end players, the absence of enough high-end players, I guess I should say, really. is so glaring. Also, I don't think their power play is very well coached, but that's another story entirely. Well, it's a recurring theme, right? They're 29th this year. They were 32nd out of 32nd out of 32 teams in the league for the previous three seasons. Now, they have improved from 4.4 goals per hour last year to 5.8 this year, but not that much in terms of actually moving

up the pecking order in the league, I guess that top unit that we've seen recently, right, with Drysdale on the point, and then Mitch Cobb-Kinnock-Kneet, Tippett, and Frost in their limited time. I think it's only 40 minutes or so together or actually generating about nine goals an hour, which would be top 10 in the league as a base rate, which is obviously a step in the right direction. I think you hit the nail in the head there. There may be the limitations of catering your entire offense

around being rush-based is that once you get into those half-court sets on the power play, those opportunities are just much more difficult to come by. And then if you don't have a game plan or problem solvers and game breakers in particular who can break down a set defense, it becomes trickier. I thought early on in the season, even when, and a lot of his offense was coming on the power play, the team's power play as a whole wasn't necessarily wowing anyone. But I did think we saw a lot from Mitchcove in terms of what it could look like one day, right? Like how he was able to move around the zone, occupy different spots, work kind of around the goal line, then come up to the flank, then sometimes even gravitate to the point and open up all sorts of different lanes and shooting opportunities for both himself and others. All that stuff. was there, it still hasn't necessarily translated that much into results, which is obviously very frustrating. But I'm with you that some of the pieces at least are in place now in terms of what the blueprint

for even a league average power play could look like down the road. And at this point, that would represent probably a world of difference for this Flyers team. Yeah, I think they need, and obviously far easier said than done. they need one more dynamic playmaking type guy with a really high hockey IQ who can play off Mishkov. And that would unlock the power play. Because if you watch Mishkoff on the power play, it's not that he can't play a lot of different roles because he can't. You can move him around. And I think we've seen the way power plays have adjusted and have developed over these last 10 years.

There's so much more motion. You know, the best power plays, everybody's in different positions. They're moving around. and the days of Claudeau just being on the left half boards and, you know, Wayne Simmons at Netfront and everybody's in their same spot and they take you apart anyway because they're just that good. Like those days are done. The power plays, the best power plays don't look like that. So Mishkov can play all around.

But it seems like the place he's the most comfortable on the power play is right around the net, not Net front, because obviously not that big. But he likes to kind of hang out off the post. and he'll move, he'll go behind the net, he'll be playmaking below the goal line, which I love, and I wish the Flyers to do that more. But he really likes to kind of sneak around and make himself an option very often to score goals near the net, to take a pass and then either bring it around or tip it in off the side. He likes to be there.

And I don't know if that's conducive to him being a power play quarterback in the way the Claude Drew was in Philadelphia for years where he just had the puck on a stick the entire time. and he just, you know, everybody ran routes and he found them and boom, there we go, goal. I think if you're going to get the most out of Mishkov on the power play, I don't know if I love him as the primary ball handler, for lack of a better term. I think they need another guy to do at least some of that, if not most of that, who has the passing ability to be able and the vision to be able to find guys, but also has the hockey IQ to be able to think the game at least close to Mishkov's level.

Because that's, that's Mishkov's biggest strength. He's just such an offensive genius. He sees plays that you didn't even know existed, and he does that on the power play as well. If you could get one more guy who can play off him, who can kind of be his vorichick to to Drew, like the way that they were able to just pass pucks across the slot at will, which is not very easy to do, but they made it look easy for close to a decade, if they could get another guy to play off Mishkov on the power play,

and as good as connect me is, I don't think it's him. And I don't think that guy is on the roster now. If they could get that guy, which again goes back to the thing of, it would be great if they could get a first line center who could be that guy. I think that unlocks the power play to the point where I don't think any coach could screw it up. But right now, I think they have the pieces to be better. I don't think Rocky Thompson, who I give a lot of criticism on Twitter. I don't think he is a bad overall coach.

I think, like, I'm not calling for him to be fired out right. I think he's done a good job overall of coaching the foreman. of this team because that is his other role. I just don't think he's proven able to unlock the power play and he doesn't seem to have the ability to figure out how to use all these pieces to turn it into at least a middle of the road power play. I think if you get another really good playmaking forward with high hockey IQ who can play off Michikov, again, easier said than done,

you probably reach the point where you don't even need a high-end power play coach. But if you then were to get a high-end power play coach, then you probably solve that problem. But again, all of this is much easier set than done. Yes. All right, I want to talk a lot more about Michab. Let's put a pin in that for a second, take our break, and then when we come back, we'll jump right back into it.

You're listening to the Hockey Piedo cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here with Charlie O'Connor. We're doing our flyers deep dive. Charlie, before we went to break, we were talking a bit about Michkov and his impact on the power player, at least the future impact. I want to break down what we've seen from him this season with you because it feels like it's been a bit of a tale of two seasons for me. Right off the bat, you saw him producing on the power play and he was getting pretty much the entirety of his production there. The 515 metrics, as you'd expect for a player making the jump from the KHL, especially at 20 years old, weren't the best certainly.

I believe in his first seven games, he was outscored 6-0 at 5-1-5. since then though the season long numbers have improved he's in the low to mid 50s in terms of both shot and expected goal share but during that last 25 game stretch that we outlined for the team as a whole he's up to 54% shots 59% high danger chances 63% expected goals now he's still on pace for about 24 goals and 60 points on the year as this it's kind of coincided ironically enough with his production not necessarily being reflective of the fact that I think he's been playing much better especially in terms of driving impacts and driving success and doing a lot of the stuff John Trudeau probably wants from at 515.

I have no doubt that that's going to come. I still think he's playing really well. You're seeing even in that Rangers game, the first goal they scored some of the stuff you can do. Sorry, it was the Red Wings game before that that was in my mind where the first goal he kind of puts the puck in Mosider, skates, around the blue line eventually leads to a nice rush goal for them. He's doing a lot of those things, flashing the creativity and puck handling and everything. I love not only how he creates looks, but like how he utilizes high danger areas on the ice,

how he not only embraces contact, but sometimes seeks it out and he's just so feisty, you put that all together. And it's such a recipe for future success for a young skilled player. But I want to talk to you about sort of this tale of two seasons for him and kind of what the difference has been and sort of the way, I guess, he's been handled by the organization every step of the way. Yeah, it's a fascinating question because I think, In comparison to the other highly touted rookies in this class, he is definitely getting the hardest coaching. Now, I'm obviously not watching, you know, Macklin-Selabrini, Hudson, the other guys on a nightly basis.

But it does seem like John Tourderella is being more demanding of Mishkoff than the other coaches, which are who are just kind of, at least from afar, seems like they're just kind of letting them roll. okay, you know, you're going to make your mistakes. That's fine. You're racking up points. We're happy. Mishkov on the other hand is playing for John Torderella, who has scratched him once, who has, you know, benched him for periods at a time on other occasions, who regularly talks about in the media,

basically that Mishkoff isn't very good defensively, and we're not going to try to turn him into a checker, but we got to get him to at least where Alex Ovechkin was when they were, when they won their cup, where he cared at least a little bit about defense. So there's a lot of stuff out there about how Mishkov still needs a lot of work. And that is true. If you watch him play, and this is especially true in the beginning of the year, there is a lot of defensive issues in his game. Now, he's definitely improved some of them. He's not blasting the zone on every occasion looking for stretch passes like he was the first month, month and a half of the year.

And the big improvement I've seen, and this was something that I think was a big reason why they did scratch him for those two games in Florida. I was on that trip in early November was something I spoke about earlier about the fact that the flyers were struggling with the consistency of the F3 in their overall system. Mishkov was spending far too much time down low in the offensive zone.

He was just hovering there regardless of whether he had the puck or not. He wasn't tracking back to stay up higher to allow the defenseman to pinch. And the point toward RELM was making, which I think was completely fair, was like, look, maybe I would be more willing to accept this if you were lighting the world on fire a five on five,

but he wasn't in the beginning portion of the year. He was barely scoring a five on five. So he was just kind of hovering around down low in the offensive zone, creating some chances, sure, but they weren't going in. And a lot of the possessions were pretty brief because they didn't have the defense been pinching down able to extend the possessions and keep them going and keep the pressure on. I think since that scratching,

Meechikov has gotten a lot better at, at being the high man. Now, he's never going to be a super defensively conscious guy, and they don't want it to be. They wanted to take more risk. They wanted to be lower in the zone than a Shankarthurier would be, for example. But they want him to have some awareness and recognition of, you know, being able to play up at that point for a little bit if, you know, Cam York or Jamie Drysdale wants to pinch down the boards to keep a play alive. But they don't want him, you know, forcing the defense to play four on five because he's hanging out of the opposite blue line hoping for a stretch pass, you know, for 20 seconds. They don't want that.

So I think at the beginning of the year, he was doing a bit too much of that. I don't think he's gotten so much better because if you look at the underlying metrics, you would say, wow, his defensive metrics are pretty good. I don't think he's gotten great defensively. I just think that because of the changes he's made, he's playing less defense. and because of that, you're seeing the shot share, the chance share, the expected goals share go up. You know, I obviously two totally different players in terms of the way they played, but I think back to Jake Vorichick. Jake Vorichick was never a good defensive player. He would freely admit that.

But there were years in his prime where his underlying metrics were incredible, including his defensive metrics. And they weren't incredible because he was a Selky contender at wing by any stretch of the imagination. They were incredible because the Flyers had the puck all the time when he was at. out there and it was defense by keepaway. And I think what you've been seeing over the last few months is a little bit more of that. The Flyers just have the puck more when Mishkov is on the ice. And what's so exciting about that over the long term, and I think this is, this was Torterella's thinking and the Flyers thinking when they scratched it was if we can,

if we can create a world where Mishkov has the puck more and we have the puck more in the offensive zone when he's on the ice, that is going to send his scoring totals over the long term. of the stratosphere. And you haven't seen it yet. And I'd be fascinated to know what the private data is showing. But the public data over the last two months, like looking at Mishkov's expectacles four per 60 on ice since the start of December, he's a 3.8 one, which is tied for the best mark among NHL forwards in the NHL.

It's better than Leon Drysettle, better than Barzell, better than Jack Hughes. These are other guys in the top 10. highest in the league. But you look at the actual goals for over that stretch that they are, that they are scoring in reality, it's 2.58, which not terrible, but nowhere near 3.81. Now, is that because the public expected goals models are overrating what he's doing out there a bit? Maybe. That's why I'd be intrigued to see what the private data shows.

It also could just mean that he's been a little snake bit. And that maybe if he keeps doing what he's been doing these next, these past two months over, you know, the final three months of the season, maybe those five on four. five point totals are going to go through the roof. That's what I'm really intrigued to see because I do think you have seen an improvement in his underlying play. Now I want to see if that improvement starts to manifest over the back half of the season if these numbers get back going.

And I think if it's going to happen, it's probably going to happen after the Four Nations because I do get the sense he's a little gassed. Give him two and a half weeks to just rest his body. He might finish the year real strong. And that's very exciting to me. Yeah, I think he certainly has, warranted a higher level of production based on the looks he's been generating. I think that's undoubtable. I do wonder though, and it's a bit of a catch-22 for them because right now he's

playing with Sean Kuturei and Joel Farab, and I assume that part of the rationale for why they like him with Kuturie is because he's going to be responsible in terms of being on the right side of the puck with his reach and how much ground he can cover in terms of his wingspan. It'll buy Michkov a bit more time, I think, to get back. If he does get caught deep, like it's a nice sort of counterbalance, I guess, to some of Mietchkov's philosophy offensively in terms of what Katrari is at this point of his career. The issue is that for a guy with this caliber of skill, but also thinking in terms of the way he like sees the ice and what he wants to do, I just don't think the talent is there to make the most of that. And that probably brings us back to the

dilemma that you raised off the top, which is this is a team that doesn't really have a true number one center. Like, imagine what he would look like, even if, if he just isn't even refined at this point of his career, just what he's doing right now, if he was playing with a Braden Point type, who gave you the defensive responsibility and the pace, but could also finish on a lot of the looks and has that stuff. Now, Brayden Point is a freak.

There's very few of those guys in the world. The Lightning are very lucky to have him, and they're not giving him up anytime soon. The Flyers, I'm not saying they need to find the next Braden Point, but a player like that, I imagine, we'd be having an entirely different conversation in terms of Meechkov's production, right? So I think that's an important thing to keep in mind.

But I think you had this on Twitter, and that's why I wanted to raise it. I think that's such a great point you make in terms of, I guess, the way this guy's rookie campaign is being portrayed, right? Because often we see with these shiny new toys, especially someone who the fans have been waiting for a couple years to come and play for this team and have been tracking them very closely, they're held up as like the franchise savior generally, right? And the teams act accordingly in terms of everything they put out publicly. it's like you look at the team's PR page or their official account or anything that comes

to the team and it's like overwhelmingly positive catered around just portraying this player in the best light possible at all times. And I'm not saying that's not what the Flyers are doing, but the coach himself at times has gone out of his way to call out deficiencies he sees in his game. And I'm sure he believes, and I'm not saying he's wrong, that it's for the greater good in terms of the long game of actually getting his game to where he wants it to be. but it's very rare that I think we see a rookie in this caller conversation, I guess get talked about internally, publicly,

the way this has gone so far this year with Meshkov and Tordorella and the Flyers in general. And I think it's very frustrated to fans. Like one thing that you have to realize from the Flyers fans perspective, number one, they were starved for this. They were starved for a guy like Mishkov basically ever since the Klaude Drew trade, but even before that because Klaude Drew, you know, great player, is still a very good NHL player, but he hasn't been Claude Jureau probably since 2018.

It's been a while since the Flyers have had a true impact guy who is a capital S star. And the hope is that Mishkoff can be that guy. But there's another factor, too, that plays into this that it probably doesn't seem that big of a deal to national people, but it's a very big deal in Philadelphia. Flyers have never had a Calder winner before. They never have.

And I think there was a lot of hope from fans that he could be that guy. And there is frustration, especially from the online portion of the fans, that maybe the Flyers are wasting an opportunity to get the fans a Calder winner by having a player in a John Turdorell who isn't feeding him ice time,

regardless of how many mistakes he's making, who is trying to focus on fixing things at an early stage that maybe other guys in this Calder race aren't having to do. that maybe they're just being allowed to be them in a way that Mishkov isn't. And I don't disagree with what the Flyers are doing because I do suspect that Mishkoff will benefit from it. And one thing that's been a big relief to me about Mishkoff, because I didn't know who he was as a person, really. There were a lot of rumors around the draft about character concerns.

It's one of the reasons why he slipped, that he was, you know, everybody said he was hypercompetitive, but he was a tough teammate. And then obviously you're like, okay, you throw that guy in with John Tortorella, who is notoriously a tough coach. How is he going to respond? Everything I've seen and heard is that Mishkov is very open to making adjustments and taking teaching from Tortorella.

It also has been a pretty popular teammate, relatively speaking, in that room, aside from the fact that, you know, he doesn't speak English very well. So there's only so much conversation that can be had between his teammates, but it sure seems like his teammates like him a lot. Obviously, they respect the hell out of him as a player, but they also like him a lot as a person. They seem genuinely fond of him.

But I was worried that he might clash with Tortorella. And I'm sure there have been times where he hasn't been happy with him, where he probably, you know, talks to his, his mom and Russian, his friends and complaints about John Tortorella. Like that wouldn't shock me even a little bit. But everything publicly, he said. and then everything I've heard behind closed doors is that he seems legitimately open to learning about these things. Now, it would be a problem if he wasn't, both from a, oh, God, how is it going to work in the short term? And also, is he going to be able to improve his game to the point where he can become the superstar. I believe he has a talent to be.

The fact that he is not chafing under John Terterella, number one, it heads off a potential disaster right now. but also it makes me even more optimistic about his ability to three, four years down the line be a guy who is scoring a ton and also is grading out quite well by advanced metrics and not getting gashed defensively. I don't think he's ever going to be great defensively. But if he's willing to be open to John Torello's coaching, I think he'll at least get to the point where he's passable. And given his immense offensive tools, a passable defensive Maffa Mishkov is a really exciting proposition. Yeah, with his competitiveness and just general approach,

I'd be pretty shocked if that wasn't part of the package in his prime. Let's end with this because Danny Breyer had his sort of mid-season state of the union. You had a presser recently. You guys broke it down on your show, and I'd recommend everyone goes and watches that on YouTube if you haven't seen it. But I want to get into that a little bit with you, because I believe the last time you had I spoke was roughly around this time last year, and we had a conversation about kind of, I guess, the directive or motivation or objective or whatever you want to portray it as for the flyers the rest of the season leading up to the deadline.

Now, we saw them kind of, they obviously sold Sean Walker, bought a 2025 first in taking Randall Hansen's deal as well. But other than that, they kept guys like Ristelighton and Loden and they were under contract, so they were well within their right to do so. We're reaching that kind of point of the year again, right, where they're hovering, around this playoff race. As I said, they have about a 20% chance of making it, but they're very live in that race. And yet the jury deadline is six weeks away. They have a couple of players there certainly that I think would not only command a lot of attention from other teams around the league, but especially given the state of the market where, as I said, every team in the Eastern conference is pretty much considering themselves as in the playoff bubble. And so they don't

necessarily want to sell, there would be a theoretical opportunity for a team to get ahead of the market and position itself as a seller and do pretty well in terms of their returns. It doesn't seem like that's what the flyers are going to do unless someone just comes and blows their door away. Maybe part of this is just sort of jockeying for position in terms of Breyer, in terms of public negotiating or being like, well, we're not. We definitely don't want to sell these guys unless you really make it worth our while. I'm curious for your take on kind of where we're at with that a year later in terms of

If you went out for a beer with Danny Beer off the record, you gave him some truth serum, what you think he'd actually say in terms of what he would really ultimately love to do at this year's deadline and with the direction of this team. It's a really good question. And a lot of this, and like obviously, you know, I interviewed you, Danny. I know him to a degree. I wouldn't say we're best friends or anything. We're not going to get beers anytime soon. But this is more of a gut feeling.

my gut feeling about what they would like to do with the deadline is they would like to be overwhelmed enough to trade Ristolide. Because I do think they know that they have a lot of guys coming in the pipeline on defense that they're very high on. Emil Andre, take a look at his underlying metrics from earlier this year when he was up. He was very impressive. Now, obviously, he's a completely different type of defenseman. He's a smallish puck mover.

the line and is a big physical defensive defenseman now. He's a guy who is at least NHL ready. You might differ on your belief on how ready he is to be a consistent impact guy. I'm probably higher on him than I think the Flyers organization might be at this given time. But he's at least ready to hold his own at the NHL level. So that's one guy. They got Hunter McDonald, who they signed out of Northeastern, who the Flyers organization is very high on.

He was a later round geographic a few years ago. now probably more analytically oriented people won't be very impressed by him, but they think very highly of him. And he is functionally a Rist-Line replacement. He's a left-handed shooting defenseman, whereas Ristair's a Ritey, but he's that same big, physical, mean type of guy. And I think he is the long-term replacement in their mind for Rissal-Ly. Then they have Oliver Bont coming, turning pro next year.

He's a righty shot who they're also very high. So they have three defensemen that are going to need spots soonish. and I think they would like to get enough value for Ristow that they can move him and clear out a spot for the guys they have coming. That said, he's been good this year. And we've we've joked about Ristow for years in the show. He's turned himself into a perfectly solid defensive defenseman. He's a solid number four, number five type guy who very well might have extra playoff utility. That's long been something that hockey men have theorized about him, although we've yet to see him in the playoffs.

but that's something they could pitch two playoffs teams. You're going to want this guy for the playoffs when it gets more physical, when the game gets tighter, things like that. My gut is that the talk about Rissal-Inan that Breyer had earlier this week, that that is a little bit of we'd like for you to blow us away. We're posturing a bit. The talk about Lawton, though, the other guy he mentioned, I don't think they want to trade Scott Lawton.

I really don't. I think if they do, it would be a very difficult decision because they believe he, is essential to their locker room culture. They believe that he aids in the development of young players because he just fosters a very positive, welcoming environment on the team. And they are, not that they don't have faith in what the room would be without him, but they just think he is that special of a person, that they don't necessarily

want to give that up. And Breyer said at last deadline that if you want Scott Law and you're going to have to overpay based on what his statistical value is. that's just a fact because we value him so highly for the other things he brings to the table. If I had to bet, I don't know if they're going to trade risk align him, but I feel like that is much more reasonable to hope for than a lot in trade, which I think would have to come with either a boatload of picks or as part of a package for one of those players, you know, top of the lineup potential defenseman, top of the lineup center that the flyer

so desperately need. So I don't expect the flyers to go tear it down or anything, but I do think that you might not be giving Breyer quite enough credit for Ristola. Because I think he's probably more open to trading Ristow than he might have seemed like in that presser earlier this week. Yeah, they're entering a fascinating position because they've obviously got Mitchcock for two more years on his on his ELC. This draft, they have three firsts and three seconds.

One of those seconds is a duck second, which will be presumably pretty high as well. They have a couple interesting names here. We haven't really talked about, but Noah Kates has been phenomenal, especially recently eating up a ton of defensive zone minutes and producing a fair bit of offense. He's a 26-year-old RFA this summer. Same goes for Morgan Frost. I imagine that Tororella probably likes one guy more than other. I'm amazed at this point that, like I get that Morgan Frost makes, what, 2.1 million,

so the flyers are necessarily desperate to give him away. They still have his RFA rights. this summer. But in terms of the playmaking ability, especially as a middle six center, how even some really good teams around the league are pretty star for that particular skill set of that position, I'm pretty surprised that someone hasn't truly knocked on their door and blown them away to try and steal him at this point. Maybe they have. And the rhetoric around him just isn't reflective of how Danny Breyer feels about it. But I imagine if a team had presented an interesting offer, we probably already would have seen that by now. It might happen by this year's deadline or

this summer. But I don't know what your mileage is on that. You obviously watch Frost more closely than me and maybe he's one of those players where when you tune in every three or four games he pops a bit more than if you're really dialing in on every single shift he takes. But I do feel like

just in terms of that prototype of that player at that age, at that cost, with that skill set, it feels like there's like seven contenders I can name right now that would benefit greatly from adding him to their team. I would totally agree with you. that said, I do think with Frost, one way you can maybe understand why you hear that rhetoric about him and you see the usage and then he's somehow still here is because I do think there is a, I hesitate to use the word disconnect because it implies conflict.

I don't think that these two guys are at each other's throats or anything. I just think there's a disagreement. I think that John Tortorella thinks that Morgan Frost is what he is. He's an inconsistent middle six center with skill who probably, doesn't get everything out of his talent that he could. And then Danny Breyer thinks very highly of Morgan Frost and thinks Morgan Frost could potentially reach that next level and doesn't necessarily want to give up on him just because he isn't one of Torts's favorites. I think that's why you see the disconnect. Because I talked to people earlier this year about Frost earlier this season. And there was scattered rumors that he was out there last summer, you know, coming off of

the year he did. He had a good second half, but then got benched for most of the second half of game 82. It was like, oh, John Turderell still doesn't totally believe in this kid. Fair. There was scatter talk that he was available. I talked to people earlier this season that basically like, yeah, if he was really available, we would have been interested, but he wasn't. The Flyers did not want to trade him. So I have to believe that Breyer is the main guy who still just doesn't quite want to give up on Frost yet because he doesn't want to get burned when Frost goes somewhere else and emerges as a 70 point guy. From my perspective, I don't think he's going to.

I think Frost is what he is. He's a good player. He's a perfectly good NHL player, but he is a middle six playmaking center who's probably too inconsistent to be much more than that. And I don't know where a middle six playmaking center who is too inconsistent to be more than that fits with the flyers long term. Like the easiest spot for him to fit would be one C, but I don't think he's ever going to be that.

They drafted Jet Lecchenko. They're very high on him. And they have Sean Guterre signed through the end of the decade. They're basically stuck with him. So where is Frost going to play if you want to upgrade your center position? To me, he's an ideal candidate for a change of scenery. But to this point, Danny Breyer hasn't agreed. So I don't think he's going to get traded at the deadline.

I could see him getting traded in the summer. But I wonder if they would trade him unless they have another center coming back in another trade, or that trade for that matter. I just wonder if the flyers are too worried about their center depth to be willing to give up Frost just to get a second round pickback for him and then not have enough centers to fill out a top nine. Like that might be what is stopping them more than anything else, to be honest with you. Yeah. Well, it's not going to stop me from cooking up fake trades from Morgan Frost. I will keep doing so until the day it happens.

Charlie, this was awesome. I'm going to let you plug some stuff around the way out, let the listeners know where they can check you out. and the show you do on YouTube and all that good stuff. Yeah, yeah. So I am now with P.HLY, which is under the All-City banner. I'm still writing. Most of my articles now are for PHLY diehards only. So check that out.

If you're a Flyers fan, I believe we're running a $48 a year sale at the moment kind of to celebrate the Eagles playoff run. So if you're interested, check that out. That's where most of my written content has been going. And then also we have a podcast, the PHLY Flyers podcast on YouTube, on all podcast channels, Apple Music, Spotify, everything like that. It's five days a week during the season. I'm on postgame shows on games I cover, so I'm not on for the entirety of it. But on off days, I'm doing a full show with my co-host, Bill Mats, and our other co-host, Kelly Hinkle, as well, is on regularly.

So check that out. That's free on YouTube, free on all podcast channels. And that's, as I said, five days a week. So it's basically a daily show. And it's been fun to do over the last, I guess we're coming up on a year and a half, getting closer to a year and a half. It's been fun. But that's where I'm at now, no longer at the old place and now currently at PHLY.

So check me out there. Well, buddy, keep up the great work. You're one of the best beats in the biz. I enjoy our coverage with this very chaotic, completely nonsensical Flyers team. Looking forward to more of it. we've got one more show here to close out the week so we'll see you right back here for that thank you for listening to the hockey pdfcadie ocast streaming on the sports night radio network