Friday\u2019s episode of Flyers Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cEverybody has a different opinion on that,\u201d Briere said. \u201cLate in my career, as a righty, I always preferred playing the left side. I felt I had more of the ice in front of me in the offensive zone. Now, it was a little tougher in the defensive zone, breaking out, but once you got to the offensive zone, you had more options.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s getting pucks out on the wall. You\u2019re receiving the puck on your backhand most of the time rather than your forehand. That\u2019s the toughest part. But again, Matvei is skilled enough and smart enough that he\u2019ll adapt to that. I think again, he\u2019s such a great talent that he could play on either side. It\u2019s not something I sit back and worry about too much. I think down the road we\u2019re going to put Matvei on the ice, wherever he is, and it\u2019s going to be a treat. That\u2019s all I care about more than the position.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That is maybe the most logical and thoughtful explanation of the changing of wings we\u2019ve heard from someone with the Flyers. Michkov has simply been an offensive zone player for his entire life, so to have the puck more in the middle of the ice, rather than along the boards and on the perimeter, made sense for him.<\/p>\n
But there is the issue with breaking out the puck and moving it up in general. Receiving pucks on the backhand, potentially needing to change your body position to make a small build-up play \u2014 it makes it more difficult than it has to be to move the puck up the ice together as a unit.<\/p>\n
Going forward, it wouldn\u2019t surprise us to see Michkov appear on both wings throughout future seasons and there will be reasons.<\/p>\n
On Michkov\u2019s offensive struggles this season and why<\/p>\n
Briere also managed to bring up another interesting point that has not been focused on a whole lot through the week of exit interviews and throughout the season: Teams are just adapting to Michkov now and that can be a major reason why we didn\u2019t see the same offensive pop this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s an intelligent young man that will adapt,\u201d Briere said. \u201cYou know, because teams do also adapt to him. They knew some of his tricks. And he\u2019s going to have to come up with different tricks and find different ways to create offense. That\u2019ll be the challenge, but I think he\u2019s smart enough to get through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The good players always find different ways to get the job done and it might just take Michkov understanding exactly how teams learned to defend him better this season, as part of his offseason training. There is an undying motivation to be the best player he can be, we certainly know that but teams did figure him out this past season.<\/p>\n
Briere talks about Matvei Michkov learning English<\/p>\n
Another barrier Michkov is trying to overcome off the ice is obviously trying to speak English and, you know, be able to communicate better with his teammates and coaches and just live his hockey life at an effective level.<\/p>\n
Briere also weighed in on this situation after being asked if he\u2019s going to focus on that this summer, and even added some personal connection to the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it would go a long way to helping him feel more comfortable, be easier with his teammates, you know, conversing on the ice during the play when things happen. I think he\u2019s getting there. He\u2019s making efforts. He\u2019s trying. I know he\u2019s doing extra work on that this offseason. He\u2019s already started that. I did have a discussion with him about that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in a similar situation when I came in. I was 20 years old, my first year pro, and I didn\u2019t speak English. \u2026 I could barely understand what was going on. They had signed a player, Martin Simard, and they sat him beside me in the locker room early in the season. And after a while, I felt better, more confident and I didn\u2019t need him anymore. I think it made the transition a little easier after that. It made me feel a little closer to my teammates. I think it will help Matvei when he\u2019s more comfortable with the language.<\/p>\n
Briere continued to talk about how there could be a scenario where a player needs clarification or for his head coach to repeat something he just said, but then not enough know how to ask him to do that. It certainly sounds like a tough hurdle to climb over no matter what.<\/p>\n
It might just be this writer but I never thought about Briere\u2019s own struggles with the English language when he was in his first couple years in the NHL down in Phoenix.<\/p>\n
Just another point that having a general manager that has been through some similar issues that Michkov experienced last summer, points to him potentially turning it around for the Flyers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the main sticking points for those critical of Philadelphia Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet\u2019s use and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-648913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}