Matvei Michkov refused to take part in the warm-up last night

Félix Forget
Matvei Michkov refused to take part in the warm-up last night
Credit: Richard T Gagnon/Getty Images

Last night, the Flyers were once again unable to end their losing streak against the Penguins. But what caught everyone's attention in that game was that Matvei Michkov was left out of the lineup.

We're talking about one of the building blocks the Flyers want to build around: seeing him sit out was therefore… unusual. And this, even though the Russian hasn't had a great playoff run either.

But in reality, we were wondering how he would take it. After all, it must have been a serious slap in the face for him to see that the team benched him for a playoff game.

And what we're hearing is that there may have been a conflict between the player and the team yesterday.

The reason? Michkov didn't want to take part in the pre-game warm-up last night.

It's worth noting that generally, players who aren't playing don't take part in warmups. However, in some cases, a team might send out one or two extras when, for example, a player is questionable or the team wants to mess with the opponent's head.

Adam Engström, for example, took part in a warm-up earlier in the series. He didn't play, but he was there anyway.

In Michkov's case, one might think the Flyers wanted him to take part in the warm-up to keep things under wraps until the last minute. But clearly, Michkov wasn't particularly keen on being a decoy during warm-ups… and this serves as yet another reminder that the player's attitude was a factor that led the Habs to pass on Michkov while being ready to draft Ivan Demidov a year later.

Will Michkov be back in the lineup for Game 6? Stay tuned.


In a nutshell

– Josh Anderson on the first line: do you agree?

– What do you think?

– That's true.

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