2023 NHL Draft: Flyers select potential steal Matvei Michkov with 7th overall pick

In what’s expected to be the best draft class in recent memory, the Philadelphia Flyers may have found a franchise cornerstone, selecting Matvei Michkov with the seventh overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft.

Michkov is the most interesting player in this year’s draft, posting nine goals and 20 points while on loan to HC Sochi of the KHL, a club that finished dead-last in the Russian first division. He posted the highest point-per-game total by any NHL-draft eligible player in KHL history and has proven to be a prolific scorer at every level, shattering Nikita Kucherov’s record points record by a U-16 Russian player in the U-20 league.

It wasn’t long ago that Michkov was considered in the same tier as first overall pick Connor Bedard and he was named tournament MVP of the 2021 IIHF World U18 Championship after posting 12 goals and 16 points – Bedard scored seven goals and 14 points, leading Canada past Russia for the gold medal. Michkov followed this up as the leading scorer of the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, outproducing 2022 first overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky, along with fellow 2022 first-rounders Ivan Miroshnichenko and Filip Mesar.

He’s a prolific playmaker and he’s looking to embarrass opponents with high-end skill and shooting. Michkov and Bedard have the best puck skills in the draft. He’s a slightly undersized playmaker, a league-average skater but he has nearly unmatched spatial awareness and hockey sense. The Flyers may have selected a future superstar, but they’ll have to wait.

Michkov is under contract with SKA Saint Petersburg through the 2024-25 season so he’ll debut in the NHL at minimum, by 2025-26. This works for the Flyers, who will need to go through an extensive rebuild in order to compete in the vaunted Metropolitan Division. If Michkov is an instant star, this could be an easy home run for new general manager Daniel Briere.