At the time of writing this, I've ranked Matvei Michkov eleventh overall and yes, I know how it sounds — f***ing absurd. .
I specifically left it out of the title of this piece because it really comes across as overdramatic click bait with the intent to draw attention. A hot take for the sake of having one. That's not what this is and that’s not what I do. This piece is going to try to justify this drop with a tangible argument that covers two important topics with the hopes that people understand where I’m coming from even if they don’t particularly agree themselves.
To get this out of the way as early as possible, I don't harbor any bias against European players. It's one of the first things I've seen mentioned when people have responded to Michkov criticism, and while it's undeniable that some people place less faith in the projectability of talented European players, I really, really like to believe I’m not one of them. I was a lead engineer in the Brad Lambert train last year when people were really starting to sour on him, resulting in an unnecessarily long piece detailing why I thought others were being overcritical of the player. Lambert finished the year third overall for me. I have zero issue sticking my neck out there for a European player I believe in, even if others don't, so I hope people take me at my word and trust that my analysis on Michkov isn't rooted in anything other than his current play being projected to the NHL.
Introduction
Eleventh overall is undeniably a massive drop when compared to other scouts — he’s still ranked between second and fifth on every list that pops up on his Elite Prospects page. Such a drastic decrease in rank relative to consensus probably comes across as me avidly disliking the player and I want to state right off the jump that isn’t the case here. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite. I’m utterly fascinated by the Russian phenom, I really want him to outplay this ranking and I want to raise him on my board. I try and make sure I don’t overrank players I like just for the sake of it if I don’t feel I can argue an ironclad case at a draft table when the time comes. The same is true for players I’m not a big fan of, although admittedly I’m not as good at catching myself with this one so it is possible that’s what is happening here and is probably important context for the article; however, Michkov is not a player I dislike so I really don’t think he is slipping because of that.
If I was to summarize my point as concisely as I can it’d be this: while the idea of what he can be five years down the line is remarkable, Michkov has slipped because I have concerns within his game that I believe really muddy what he’s going to become at the end of his development. I see stardom as less of a lock for Matvei, it’s one possible path for him out of many that are less endearing. The concerns aren’t exactly small and I haven’t seen them addressed yet by the public (for the most part), which makes sense seeing as it’s December. After all, this is the time of year where posting comprehensive scouting reports likely means it’s going to get lost in the void by the time real viewership comes around in a few months.
I think Michkov boasts a ton of goal scoring potential, but I think the ceiling people refer to when they talk about him is a bit overstated. I haven’t seen anyone actually detail what this ceiling is and how his play can reach that point, but again, that’s more likely because of the time of year being mostly dead for detailed content rather than nobody having a legitimate argument in his favour.
While it seems the majority of folk are big fans and would take him extremely high in the draft, I have noticed that there is a small increase of criticism towards the player that is slowly growing as the season carries on and viewing samples increase. What started as minor grievances that people hoped he would overcome are now beginning to look like mainstay attributes within his game. Combine that with this draft being loaded with quality talent compared to the last two years and I think the discussion about lowering Michkov down a tier is a bit more fair than people may think. There is a pretty large tier of players extending from six to the mid teens and they’re all close enough to be interchangeable. If the trends in Michkov’s play continues and these concerns aren’t alleviated then I do think there will be more people sharing this sentiment when it comes time for the teams to walk up to the podium in Nashville. Whether the NHL scouts themselves share this view, I don’t know whatsoever. I’m not sure if I'm going insane and missing something extremely obvious, if people are giving Michkov the benefit of the doubt over some issues that are a little too significant to ignore now that we’re approaching the second half of the season or there is just this large of a philosophical gap between myself and other scouts when evaluating him.
The Play of Matvei Michkov
Matvei Michkov is a helluva player. You can't fluke yourself into thrashing VHL scoring at this age without being elite at multiple aspects of hockey. Unsurprisingly, his biggest strengths all have to do with scoring goals. His shot. His ability to find soft spots in defensive coverage for shots as the puck carrier. The way he identifies dangerous space when he's off-puck and times his movement into that pocket to shoot off of a pass. These are clear strengths and the results speak for themselves in that regard.
Scouts who are lower on elite goal scorers tend to have an argument built around inferior playmaking, but that’s not what this is. Honestly, Michkov’s distribution can be an equal, or sometimes even superior strength compared to his goal scoring. He looks best when he’s using give and go sequences to move up ice, or utilizing an area pass to set up a linemate to enter dangerous space in-motion. They’re underrated aspects of his game that are honestly just as appealing as his tenacity for finding mesh is. It’s unmistakable that Michkov has the capacity for high level playmaking.
Defensively, Michkov carries competency and the ability to read the ice, but can often be found cherry picking the defensive blue line in hopes to fly up the ice. I don't see this as a long term concern as it just takes a single coach to say "stop doing that or you're on the bench" to get some defensive work out of him.
So what's the issue? If Michkov is a good shooter, can find space, can pass the puck and has defensive potential, then why did he drop so drastically? What's going wrong?
Well, the issue here is projection. The way I see it, Michkov has a very worrisome combination of issues that is possible to overcome, but also tends to be a lot more difficult than one might assume. A lot of highly touted prospects who never lived up to the hype tend to carry these issues themselves.
The tools he has are more than enough to dominate his league, but they are questionable in their current form to regularly find success in the NHL.
Even with the tool advantage in the VHL, there is a tremendous amount of inefficiency within his decision making.
The combination of not being a playdriver while also not playing with a tremendous amount of pace.
That is a terrifying combination to have.
The tools he has are more than enough to dominate his league, but they are questionable in their current form to regularly find success in the NHL.
Michkov's shot is fantastic and his ability to find space is quite advanced for this level. You can see Michkov drift away from the play and start to think "what are you doing" before realizing that he saw how play was going to develop and decided to lurk into space that is about to be vacated by the defense. The problem is that while Michkov has read play correctly, it assumes that the other four players on his team are going to read play the same way, solve the necessary problems to open up the necessary lane at the right time and then execute the pass to him. This may sound a bit nitpicky as Michkov is a goal scorer after all and a big chunk of his responsibility is to be in the right space at the right time for a shot.. and yes, I agree. Michkov shouldn't be overly criticized for other people not being able to execute advanced OZ cycles at the highest level; however, hockey is a 5v5 sport and it's preferable that all five are helping set up plays when it's their turn with the puck. There's a lot that goes into getting the puck into that final destination of open space that Michkov is able to glide into so seamlessly and it shouldn't be dismissed. More on this in a bit.
His skill and skating combination is legitimately good, looking its best when he has the puck in-motion with a lot of space. Lateral mobility, sharp cuts without losing puck control, it's all there. It's not comparable to that of Bedard's in any way but that is a pretty absurd standard to hold anyone to. The thing is that it’s not clearly the second best in the draft either. In fact, I think there are some pretty strong arguments that numerous players have a better toolkit than Michkov.
The tools being good but not generational start to turn into a larger problem when you examine the small area game, which is more important for projection as Michkov finds himself in these situations a lot. Like I said, he is best in open space, but where is that open space going to come from? He doesn't create a ton of separation and is more reliant on using puck protection mechanics than I'm personally comfortable with considering his playstyle, especially when you factor in that he can often be found with his head down in these situations. He can be overwhelmed physically, which isn’t a concern long term, but is a bit of a red flag as well.
Even with the tool advantage in the VHL, there is a tremendous amount of inefficiency within his decision making.
This is a significant percentage of what led to Michkov's drop. There is just so much inefficiency in his game.
Michkov has hardly shown any diversification in his play all year long. He tries different things, yes, but he keeps forcing the things that aren’t going so well for him this year. Just building off of the prior point, a multitude of small area situations go sour due to being weaker physically yet it doesn’t stop him from circling the perimeter with his head down as he troubleshoots through traffic. This typically ends with him getting pushed off the puck and it doesn’t seem to be setting off any “maybe I shouldn’t keep doing this” alarms, though this part specifically isn’t that strong of an argument because there can be reasons one cannot infer from video that explain why he’s doing it.
While he's a gifted shooter away from the puck, he's actually quite inefficient as a shooter with it. This is exceptionally frustrating considering he has the tools to create better looks. The counter argument here is that this aspect can be developed going forward. I mostly agree, but I view it as a possibility and I don't share the confidence that it's a guarantee. Every viewing is filled with a gluttonous amount of shot attempts that only work in the VHL because the release itself is enough to deceive goalies. That won't be the case for the best goalies in the world who simply aren't bested by sheer velocity from the spots Michkov is choosing to shoot from. Prospects who score a lot from low danger shots almost always have a drop in goal scoring once they reach top competition unless they cut them out of their game and focus entirely on the better ones. It’s harder to cut that habit than people think.
The duration of Michkov's carries can be.. absolutely wild, the whole time passing up on a laughable amount of open passing lanes. I haven't actually tracked this so I may be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if more of these extended carries ended with turnovers instead of generating a good play (and when I say good play, I do not mean a low danger shot from the boards which is how the majority of these carries end). So while Michkov demonstrates pretty high level passing at times, it's surrounded by extremely frustrated tunnel vision and forced passes that are completely unnecessary.
Most of the time Michkov can be found playing away from the puck in open space, waiting for a chance, and theoretically that means when he gets the puck that good things happen. Unfortunately, most of the time he’s seen flying into the zone and trying some manner of a skill move, either a drag to beat a defensive stick or putting it between the legs because people at this level can’t stop that, and just shooting the moment he has space. It’s becoming extremely telegraphed and is the complete opposite of deception. He’ll have quite a few disappointing plays in a row before he mixes it up with a great pass or escape into the slot for an actual dangerous chance and you’re like “whoa, there he is”. Add in the fact that his offense looks it’s best on the rush and that he tends to struggle more in the cycle and forecheck, and the concern grows for me.
The combination of not being a playdriver while also not playing with a tremendous amount of pace.
The pace demanded by the NHL is only growing higher and higher with each year that passes. I don't fully believe that drafting philosophies have fully caught up with this new demand for raw pace in terms of making decisions and executing them.
On top of that, first line stars are expected to do more in a chain of events than just participate in the final touch that scores the goal. To be on the first line means to go against Cale Makar, Victor Hedman, Miro Heiskanen and the other superstar defenders of the NHL. Their defensive influence cannot possibly be overstated, they are nightmares to play against. It is so, so, so, so, so, so, so god damn hard to get them out of valuable space in their zone so dangerous opportunities can be formed. It doesn't just happen because of one player doing one move at the right time. It's two units of five executing a tactical dance just to find half a second of time and a few feet of uncontested space in the best cases, and every decision made after that space is found has to be perfect if you are to deconstruct an NHL defensive structure. If you're taking a player in the top five with the expectation that they're going to be a superstar scorer, you want them to do more than just participate in the dance — you want them to lead it.
Off-puck play is obviously a huge part of this and I do expect Michkov is going to be able to read where and when he's supposed to be during these sequences against the best NHL players. Right now, Michkov hasn't left a trail of evidence that he will be able to execute the on-puck details to the level required to be the playdriver. This does not mean it's impossible for him to do so, but more than a few players this year have shown a higher likelihood of executing this in the NHL and that's another big part of why he has dropped.
The last piece of the puzzle and the one that really, really makes the above points so critical is pace. To put it bluntly, Michkov just doesn't have a lot of pace in his game right now. Most decisions away from off-puck shooting aren't executed quickly and there are many, many times this season where Michkov has just been too slow on his reads, missing his chance to execute his intended plays. Gliding around in an open-legged stance while surveying the ice is a fast ticket to getting absolutely leveled. On the off-chance that you aren’t crushed by a unit bordering on spartanism, you’ll find creating legitimately impactful opportunities are quite hard to do when your teammates are all executing their routes and making decisions faster than you. I don’t believe that Michkov is unable to play with more pace, and pace is something players improve on as they develop, but to go from inefficient decision making at subpar VHL pace to hyper-efficient decision making at superstar NHL pace is a journey that is not to be taken lightly.
The Reputation of Matvei Michkov
How one's reputation affects their NHL draft stock is a funny thing. We've heard about Michkov for years now due to his scoring rampage as he ascended the Jr. hockey ladder. There's no denying that the numbers certainly told the story of a generational talent. Hell, the average draft fan knows his name has been mentioned alongside Bedard since 2020. Outside of people giving Adam Fantilli an outside shot, he was viewed as a top two guy for the 2023 draft.
The perspective one carries entering a prospect viewing often affects how we interpret the details of a player's game. With Lambert last year, his scoring numbers dropped significantly while another draft eligible with less of a reputation was scoring lights out on the same team. People went into viewings with a "what's going wrong" perspective towards Lambert and it didn't take long for people to start ripping his "Hockey IQ" (whatever that's supposed to be) to shreds. A year later and he's looking pretty damn solid in the AHL and I still wholeheartedly believe that he is the highest upside player of the 2022 Draft.
I won't say this next part like it's a guarantee because I don't want to speak for other scouts; however, it is my theory that Michkov's legendary reputation coming into the season, combined with his hilarious NHLe, has resulted in people starting his viewings with a "what's going right" perspective which can skew how we process on-ice actions. I know for a fact that I’ve fallen victim to crediting players for actions that they probably shouldn’t get credit for because I gave them the benefit of the doubt. They got that benefit because they were highly touted players and I entered my viewings knowing this, so I filed it under “it’s just part of their game”. After a few viewings of Michkov, I started watching games from a “how is he actually scoring this much” perspective because it just wasn’t clicking with me. Only then did the details start to unravel.
As stupid as this sounds, I haven't actually heard a whole lot about what makes Michkov such an elite player beyond his scoring rates. There aren't really any scouting reports out because it's still early. There aren't comprehensive ranking writeups out yet because, again, it's still early. There are tweets from scouts and the like but you can't find valuable reads on players in 280 characters. I don’t believe that everyone has Michkov high because he’s supposed to be, that’s an arrogant take that does nothing for anyone but shoot myself in the foot. I will say that I am looking forward to the time of year when people start talking about why they like him. This conversation is going to have my full attention all year.
Conclusion
So what is there to think of all this? Well, I think that Michkov has a lot of strengths and certainly has a lot of potential, but I do think there are legitimate concerns in his projectability. I'm really hoping that the move to a new team can provide clearer answers. I also said this about Brad Lambert last year, and his season kinda started going to hell after that. So… yeah.
Buying entirely into production is something that I just can’t do, even if sorting by NHLe tends to work out pretty well from a draft efficiency standpoint. I think the details are mandatory to maximize efficiency with each selection — understanding why high scorers are scoring a ton and seeing if there are factors with low scorers that are limiting their production. Every time a high-end prospect with production doesn’t make it, there’s always people on Reddit, Twitter and other platforms saying that people need to look beyond the points and focus on what the player is doing. At the same time, those same people tend to be the first to laugh at someone who goes against the grain with a high scoring player. I’m not sure what path Michkov goes down, but I think it’s pretty evident that I believe it’s possible to fall short of the hype. I also think this goes as another great example about why overhyping players before their draft year is just nonsensical. What makes a player elite from their D-1 and before does not guarantee an elite NHL projection.
Michkov is a fascinating case for what development can do. Some may see this as a player with an abundance of developmental runway and that he has the potential to be an absurd monster, and they may not be wrong. Myself, I can't look at a player who is missing many core aspects of an NHL star's game and say "yeah, he will develop them all over time". Sure, it’s possible, but why would that be the case for Michkov and not the other players behind him? What's different about Michkov's flaws and the flaws of Bedard, Fantilli, Carlsson, Cristall, Benson, Perron, Smith, Sandin-Pellika, Brindley and Moore (the players I ranked ahead of Michkov) that makes it so clear that he will fix his and that they can't fix theirs? Is it a fact that he tangibly carries more upside than the likes of Fantilli, Carlsson, Cristall, Perron and Smith? Is he guaranteed to be as reliable a selection as Benson, Sandin-Pellika and Moore, three extremely projectable players who are going to be very, very good at what they do?
Some level of this is going to be philosophical. After all, Michkov's strength is scoring goals and it's hard to argue against that being so pivotal considering that they, you know, kind of win you the game. My belief is that he won't end up as the 50 goal scorer many expect him to be without addressing these parts of his game, but that doesn't mean he can't score 30+ every year and contend for 40 a few times, especially with the right linemates. How do you properly weigh that against his peers that are showing a lot more in terms of driving play for their line, who carry a lot of scoring potential themselves? How do you factor in that he may not even reach that point and end up similar to a Mike Hoffman-esque player? That’s not the outcome I expect, but it isn’t an impossibility.
Regardless, the point of this piece wasn't to change how everyone perceives Michkov, I'd be delusional to think I carry that level of influence with the words that come from my idiot brain. Part of the reason I wrote this is because I have a ranking piece coming out in the next few days with Michkov at 11 and I couldn't find a way to avoid crucifixion in a couple of paragraphs.
The other, more important part is that I think there are some people there who are skeptical about aspects of Michkov's game but aren't fully sure if they're right because.. well, no one has really opened the doors to this type of conversation. It’s easy to doubt yourself when your eyes are telling you something different than what everyone sees because probability suggests it’s you who are in the wrong. So while I don't expect (or want) people to change their opinions solely because of this, I hope it at least serves as the door opening for this type of conversation.
Orrrrrrrrr maybe I'm just a complete dumbass who's overthinking the easy side of scouting and missing the forest for a tree and everyone will slam that door shut. Either way, I learn something so I'm good with it.