30 pounds lighter and fluent in English: Matvei Michkov is a changed man

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30 pounds lighter and fluent in English: Matvei Michkov is a changed man
Credit: Capture d'écran/Twitter

In 2025–26, Matvei Michkov's physical condition became a talking point. The young Russian was out of favor with his coach, Rick Tocchet, who publicly called him out for it.

This even led to Michkov—despite his immense talent—being left out of the playoffs.

So people wondered if the kid, after all that, would learn from his mistakes. And the good news is that he worked hard to make it happen.

Michkov spoke with the media on the sidelines of the team's training camp… and we noticed that the Russian was able to answer questions in English. He needed a few questions translated into Russian, but he answered each one in English.

We know his command of English has been an issue since he arrived in Philadelphia, but it seems to have improved. That's good news.

In fact, it was a rather smiling Michkov who chatted with the reporters. He talked about his summer training, emphasizing that he's developed better eating habits.

And the results are striking: the Russian has lost… 30 pounds.

Michkov feels he's truly lighter and faster on the ice. Cutting out fast food and sugar has helped him… even though he admits he still likes to eat a little chocolate on his days off. Hehe.

You can tell Michkov worked really hard over the summer to avoid reliving the tough moments from last season. Instead of spending the year lagging behind his teammates in terms of fitness, he's arriving at camp in better shape than ever.

Now we'll just have to see if that translates into results, but we should certainly commend his efforts to put himself in the best possible position.


In a nutshell

– Phew.

– Alex Newhook didn't want to leave Montreal.

– He then clarified that he hadn't. But nice try, hehe.

– We can understand that.

– Note.

– Things are going well for Vinzenz Rohrer in Europe.

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