Michkov Flying to Philly

Matvei Michkov had the talent to go second overall in the 2023 draft. However, due to his KHL contract commitments, there were concerns he'd be stuck in Russia for a few years. Those concerns caused him to fall on draft day, until the Flyers swooped in and snagged him seventh overall. It now appears that those concerns were overblown as we learned on Sunday that Michkov is set to be released from his KHL team, setting the stage for his Flyers' debut in 2024-25. What are the fantasy implications of this, you ask?

Sources confirms SKA will give Michkov his release on Monday. Source says it's based on compassionate grounds, Michkov's father passing away a year ago.
J.P. Barry and Pat Brisson of CAA Hockey secured the rights to represent Michkov a few weeks ago and working in collaboration… https://t.co/ZTQxjCLYg3

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) June 23, 2024

Let's start with a reminder of where the Flyers are right now. This is a team that surpassed expectations during the regular season, battling for a playoff spot until the very end. Their success was fuelled by strong defense – very on brand for a team coached by John Tortorella. Although their offense ranked 27^th in the league, averaging just 2.82 goals per game, their defense ranked 19^th, with 3.15 goals against per game. I imagine they would have surrendered even fewer goals had the inexperienced Samuel Ersson not been thrust into a starting role. The team's defensive prowess this past season might be easier to grasp when you consider they surrendered the second fewest shots per game and ranked top-10 in expected goals against at even strength (via NaturalStatTrick). With Philly's success this season built upon team-first, defensively responsible play, it's fair to wonder how a 19-year-old offensive superstar fits into that game plan.

The drone shot of Michkov's toe drag and goal is phenomenal pic.twitter.com/rwjI2mgjbk

— Nasty Knuckles (@NastyKnuckles) April 6, 2024

On one hand, Tortorella seems to be better at coaching young players today than he had been in years past. On the other hand, as a young, offensively inclined player, Michkov is bound to face some growing pains as Tortorella integrates him into a more defensive style of play. Although Tortorella emphasizes certain defensive aspects of the game, he doesn't hate offensive superstars. Artemi Panarin posted an 83-point and 90-point pace during his two years under Tortorella in Columbus, averaging nearly 20 minutes of action a night. Sure, Panarin took a step forward when he went to New York where he was surrounded by more talent, but we often forget that the Russian star was more productive in Columbus than he was in Chicago.

With a full offseason ahead of us, rosters are still very fluid, so I'd rather not project linemates at this time. I will say that adding Michkov to the fold provides a significant boost to the Flyers' offense and players who skate beside him should improve on last season's point totals. That applies at even strength and on the power play. Speaking of the power play…

Philadelphia has been horrendous with the man advantage in recent years. Their power play has finished dead last in each of the past three seasons, sporting a 12.6% success rate in 2021-22, 15.6% in 2022-23, and 12.2% in 2023-24. Aside from Travis Konecny, they haven't really had elite offensive talent in the lineup during this period, so their lacklustre numbers on the PP aren't all that surprising – but that brings us to another point.

During this three-year stretch, Konecny has been the team's most productive player by far. There's a chasm between his 181 points and the 123 amassed by second place Joel Farabee. As the team's greatest scoring threat, you'd expect Konecny to receive significant opportunity with the man advantage, where his offensive ability would theoretically flourish. However, in this case, reality isn't necessarily logical. Over the past three years, Konecny has only seen a modest 56% share of Philly's total power-play time. There has been some fluctuation in that number, which moved from 53%, to 61%, to 56% over this three-year span. Still, that's not the high volume you'd expect from a player that was far and away Philly's greatest attacker. While most successful teams stack one power-play unit and give that group the lion's share of action, Philly has been adamant about splitting time relatively evenly between two units. Such a strategy limits the offensive ceiling of the team's skaters because they don't get the opportunity to rack up lofty power-play point totals like other players do.   

In a situation where he has freedom and optimal offensive opportunity, Michkov has the talent to produce 70 points as a rookie. However, on a Flyers' team that probably wants to push for the playoffs after last year's success, playing for a coach that emphasizes defensive responsibility, Michkov probably won't get the deployment necessary to achieve lofty point totals in year one. Instead, I'd expect a more modest output – perhaps something in the 55-point ballpark?

Sharks & Preds Swap Youngsters

Shifting our attention to a lower-profile transaction that might have fantasy implications, Nashville and San Jose exchanged a couple of youngsters with pedigree on Sunday. Ozzy Wiesblatt – who was drafted 31^st overall in 2020 – is now with the Predators' organization, while Egor Afanasyev, selected 45^th overall in 2019, joins the Sharks.

Afanasyev's offensive talent was on full display in the AHL last year as he broke out with 27 goals and 27 assists, for 54 points in 56 games. He'll have less competition to crack an NHL lineup with the Sharks' organization, so we should be able to see if his offensive ability translates to the big-league next year. Wiesblatt may take a bit more time to crack the Preds' lineup, but he would probably benefit from some more development time in the AHL, where he posted 11 points in 34 regular-season games last year. It's worth noting that Wiesblatt was more productive in the playoffs, tallying nine points in 15 appearances, and perhaps showing glimpses of what's to come? While 22-year-old Wiesblatt is on contract next year, 23-year-old Afanasyev is currently a restricted free agent.

GOAT. AGAIN.#MILhockey pic.twitter.com/1yAk5QtKck

— Milwaukee Admirals (@mkeadmirals) May 23, 2024

Stanley Cup Final Finale

Monday night. Game Seven. The 2023-24 season finale. Will it be the Florida Panthers, finally breaking through after coming so close last season, or the Edmonton Oilers, reaching a peak that seemed unfathomable from the 31^st-place valley they occupied in mid-November.

It's been a tale of two series thus far, with Florida controlling the first three contests and Edmonton controlling the last three. The battle of special teams can't be understated as Edmonton's power play and penalty kill were on fire all playoffs but experienced some adversity early on in this series. They were able to weather that storm and have been back to business recently.

	Games 1-3		Games 4-6
	Goals For	PP%	Goals For	PP%
Edmonton	4	0/10	18	23.1 (3/13)
Florida	11	1/9	5	0 (0/10)

	Games 1-3		Games 4-6
	GAA	SV%	GAA	SV%
Sergei Bobrovsky	1.33	.953	5.06	.793
Stuart Skinner	3.13	.868	1.67	.942

The strength of Edmonton's offense has been undeniable in recent games and Sergei Bobrovsky serves as a testament to that. Bob has allowed three or more goals in each of these last four games against Edmonton. He'd allowed 3+ in just four of 19 games prior. It's worth noting that during the first three rounds, Bob wouldn't practice the day before a game. However, due to the spaced-out schedule of the Final, he did practice the day before Games 3, 5, and 6. To return to the process that fuelled his winning ways, he skipped Sunday's practice ahead of Monday's Game 7.

This angle of Sergei Bobrovsky's ridiculous save 😳

📺: ABC/ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/PniJktQsRz

— ESPN (@espn) June 9, 2024

Barkov's Conn Smythe Case

In Friday's Ramblings, Ian highlighted McDavid's dominance this postseason and how it could be enough to win the Conn Smythe regardless of who wins the Stanley Cup. I don't think I realized how big the offensive gap was between McDavid and Florida's leading MVP candidate, Aleksander Barkov. Barkov's elite defensive ability has allowed him to make a mark in these playoffs, but defensive impacts aren't as easy for the public to digest as point totals are. The thing is, despite the great magnitude of Barkov's defensive work, I don't think it's enough to make up for the difference in offense between him and McDavid. With 42 points, Edmonton's captain has nearly twice as many points as Florida's, with Barkov sitting on 22 right now.

While Barkov may have been integral in shutting down opposing offenses through the first three rounds of the playoffs, he hasn't had the same effect on McDavid, who has 11 points through six games of this series. It would take a monumental Game 7 from Barkov to swing votes at this stage, and even that probably wouldn't be enough. Although Sergei Bobrovsky was in the Conn Smythe conversation before this series started, his struggles in Games 4, 5, and 6 have caused him to fall out of favour.

Since the beginning of the salary cap era (2005-06), I count three times where the Conn Smythe went to a member of the Cup-winning team despite them being comfortably outscored by a member of the losing team. We saw it most recently in 2015-16, when Logan Couture had 30 points to Conn Smythe winner Sidney Crosby's 19. That might be the best comparison to our current situation, as many justified Crosby's win using his strong play at both ends of the ice. Although the point gap is now twice as big, Barkov's defense could be similar to Crosby's (no pun intended). It's remarkable that Barkov has managed to create significantly more scoring chances than his opponents despite starting more of his shifts in the defensive zone than the offensive zone (via NaturalStatTrick).

Silky stuff from the Panthers captain. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/5HPm5LrTCf

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) June 22, 2024

The other two examples occurred in 2012-13, when David Krejci posted 26 points to winner Patrick Kane's 19, and in 06-07, when Daniel Alfredsson and his 22 points lost out to Scott Neidermayer and his 11. Comparing points in that last case is a little unfair seeing as Neidermayer was making huge defensive impacts, averaging just about 30 minutes a night during that run. Since we're bringing ice time into the equation though, it's worth noting that McDavid's ~23 minutes a night represent a decent jump from Barkov's 21:17.

Although the Conn Smythe is meant to go to "the most valuable player for their team in the playoffs", I think voters first look at the Cup-winning team's journey and try to find a player who drove the bus on that journey. If there isn't an obvious candidate, then you might consider the best representative from the losing team. I think that's kind of how things played out with the last Cup-loser/Conn Smythe-winner Jean-Sebastien Giguere in 2003. Jamie Langenbrunner of the Cup-winning Devils led the league in playoff scoring, but he had a relatively modest 18 points in 24 games, while Giguere had an astounding .945 SV% and 1.62 GAA. Many report Giguere's play being even more impressive than those stats suggest, especially considering the quality of the team he had in front of him compared to the quality of opposition they ousted.  

The most recent instance of a skater from the finalists beating out a skater from the champions is Flyers' Reggie Leach in 1975-1976. He had 24 points to Cup-winning Guy Lafleur's 17. What seemed more important about that run was Leach racking up a record-setting 19 playoff goals while second place from that postseason only had eight. Goals are often considered more valuable than assists, but with both Barkov and McDavid sitting on eight right now, there isn't a massive gap in that category. If you want to get controversial, Barkov leads the league with four game-winning goals this postseason while McDavid only has one.

Of course, McDavid's 34 assists represent an NHL playoff record, and his 42 points rank fourth all time – behind only Wayne Gretzky (twice) and Mario Lemieux. However, I'd argue that on its own, setting a record is not an integral component of the MVP debate – it's more about value relative to other players that season. Does the 21-point gap between McDavid and Barkov evaporate once you factor in defensive impacts and a potential cup win for Florida? That's a question everyone will answer differently, because value is a subjective term that we all view through different lenses. If you're looking for an objective number to lean on, betting odds (-3500) imply a 97% chance that 97 wins the Conn Smythe. Fitting. You know what else is fitting? The name of this column, because I just spend 900 words rambling about the Conn Smythe when the winner is virtually set in stone according to oddsmakers.

Connor McDavid good lord 😳 pic.twitter.com/ieaXURJ1gS

— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) June 19, 2024

At the end of the day, McDavid is deserving of the Conn Smythe no matter the result of Monday night's game. However, if Barkov wills Florida to a Game 7 victory, it's not completely outlandish to suggest he too is deserving of postseason MVP. Whichever player or team you're rooting for, I hope tonight's season finale is an enjoyable one for you!

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Thanks for reading! If you ever have any fantasy hockey questions, follow me on Twitter @BrennanDeSouza and shoot me a message!