Today marks the first anniversary of our first full day of operations as a brand. With that in mind, I figured it was fitting to commemorate the occasion by profiling my favorite team’s incoming franchise cornerstone yet again – but with a more comprehensive angle. It also fits that we will be dealing with two players who are among the all-time favorites for two of my colleagues here at Black Stitch Hockey.

This was basically born out of a simple conversation about how Matvei Michkov is entering a better situation than most generationally projecting stars have in their rookie seasons. Sure, the Philadelphia Flyers aren’t going to be title contenders this year after not doing much in the way of roster alteration save for addition by subtraction by buying out Cam Atkinson and bringing Michkov on. That said, teams that draft and add a player of his caliber are usually absolute bottom-feeders. I didn’t intend upon publishing this originally, but I put in enough work on it (working non-stop for over four hours straight) to feel that doing so was justified, in addition to the appropriateness of the occasion.

This is how the framework functions here:

These players were selected by merit of being Michkov’s DY comps in the Hockey Prospecting model developed Byron Bader from the thirty years prior to Michkov’s draft class, were top two forwards picked in their respective classes, and saw meaningful top line/top six minutes in their respective rookie seasons. This meant that Wayne Gretzky (also undrafted), Robert Reichel (in addition to being too low of a pick) and Mario Lemieux were axed due to being too long ago (Paul Kariya is also pushing it in relevance, but he also entered a dire enough situation in Anaheim to warrant analysis), Phil Kessel landed just outside this range due to being the third forward selected in 2006 after Jonathan Toews and Nicklas Backstrom, and Kessel and Jack Hughes were also cut due to not quite getting enough playing time during their rookie years to merit inclusion since Michkov is unlikely to play such minutes. It might seem unfair that pick spot factors in considering Matvei was the fifth picked forward and had a lower NHLe than Fantilli, but I framed it this way due to how the conversation around Bedard and Michkov was for years. Additionally, Matvei played just 30 KHL games in his DY, only had a true full-time role for 27 of them, and had the highest NHLe of any player in the 2023 class that had spent the previous year playing against grown men in a pro league.

I analyzed these players’ raw stats in their rookie seasons, their NHLe prior to their arrival in the NHL, the stats of the linemates primarily using the Dobber Sports line combinations tool, and utilized the Adjusted Hockey model to bring these numbers up to a contemporary 82-game pace. For the sake of transparency, I will note that this endeavor had some limitations:

– 5v5 time was the primary point of overlap for respective linemates, though PP was factored in to a considerable degree, using Dobber’s tracked data.

– Patrick Kane’s data is something of an incomplete grade due to the volatility in Chicago that year.

– Connor McDavid is an INC himself due to getting injured just 45 games into that year, but there is enough to draw some conclusions from and he did some remarkable things that were too dominant to ignore/leave out.

– The line combos tool only goes back to 2007-08, so I had to do some patchwork with Paul Kariya and Sidney Crosby, using different newspaper/sports journal articles from their respective rookie campaigns. Crosby also was in a very volatile situation due to the in-season head coaching change from Eddie Olczyk to Michel Therrien meaning a swing from frequently changing lines to a more fixed roster construction, as well as changes in player personnel via Recchi’s trade and Lemieux’s in-season retirement. To this same point, generally, there had to be some variation in each profile due to the ebbs and flows of available data and consistency in roster construction. If any informed reader wants to fact check any part of this, I welcome it and will fix it accordingly.

– Adjusted Hockey hasn’t updated in a while, so the paces are as of the end of 2022-23. However, I think that’s negligible considering the league-wide GPG only dropped by 0.07.

For Michkov, the framework is somewhat simplistic. I will stack his DY and D+1 NHLe against the numbers from the top nine most productive members of the forward group that he is joining that returns from last season. Obviously, not ALL of the nine leading forwards in points from last season that are coming back next year can/will play with Matvei, but it was the easiest way to frame the environment he’s entering.

Without further ado, here is each rookie profile:

Paul Kariya:

Drafted 4th overall (second-highest forward after #1 Alexandre Daigle) in 1993, debuted 1994–95

D0 NHLe: 63 (NCAA – Hockey East)

D+1 NHLe: 49 (NCAA – Hockey East)

D+2: Led ANA in points with 39 in 47 (lockout shortened year, 48 game season) (adjusted pace: 68)

Most common linemates/second and third in points:

Shaun Van Allen: 29 in 45 (adjusted pace: 40)

Stephan Labeau: 24 in 38 (adjusted pace: 53)

Sidney Crosby:

Drafted #1 overall in 2005, debuted 2005–06

D0: 58 (QMJHL)

D+1: Led PIT in points with 102 in 81 (adjusted pace: 100)

Most common linemates:

Tomas Surovy: 25 in 53 (adjusted pace: 37)

Ziggy Palffy: 42 in 42 (adjusted pace: 80)

Mark Recchi: 57 in 63 (not incl. 7 in 20 w/CAR after trade) (adjusted cumulative: 62)

John LeClair: 51 in 73 (adjusted pace: 56)

Mario Lemieux: 22 in 26 (retired, afib/irregular heartbeat) (adjusted pace: 66)

Other leading scorers:

Sergei Gonchar: 58 in 75 (adjusted pace: 61)

Ryan Malone: 44 in 77 (adjusted pace: 46)

Patrick Kane:

Drafted #1 overall in 2007, debuted 2007–08

D0 NHLe: 62 (OHL)

D+1: Led CHI in points with 72 in 82 (adjusted pace: 78)

Most common linemates:

Patrick Sharp: 62 in 82 (adjusted pace: 70)

Jonathan Toews: 54 in 64 (adjusted pace: 76)

Tuomo Ruutu: 21 in 60 (not incl. 11 in 17 w/CAR after trade) (adjusted cumulative: 36)

Martin Havlat: 27 in 35 (adjusted pace: 68)

Robert Lang: 54 in 76 (adjusted pace: 63)

John Tavares:

Drafted #1 overall in 2009, debuted 2009–10

D0 NHLe: 46 (OHL)

D+1: Led NYI in points with 54 in 82 (adjusted pace: 57)

Most common linemates:

Matt Moulson: 48 in 82 (adjusted pace: 52)

Kyle Okposo: 52 in 80 (adjusted pace: 57)

Josh Bailey: 35 in 73 (adjusted pace: 42)

Other leading scorers:

Mark Streit: 49 in 82 (adjusted pace: 52)

Frans Nielsen: 38 in 76 (adjusted pace: 43)

Blake Comeau: 35 in 61 (adjusted pace: 50)

Connor McDavid:

Drafted #1 overall 2015, debuted 2015–16

D0 NHLe: 63 (OHL)

D+1: Third in points on EDM in 2015-16 with 48 in 45 (injured) (adjusted pace: 98)

Most common linemates:

Benoit Pouliot: 36 in 55 (adjusted pace: 62, most in career by 9)

Jordan Eberle: 47 in 69 (adjusted pace: 63)

Pat Maroon: 14 in 16 (not incl. 13 in 56 w/ANA prior to trade) (adjusted cumulative: 34)*

*data regarding partnership may be off/lacking in context considering the point at which Maroon was acquired and McDavid was injured; if anyone can advise, let me know

Nail Yakupov: 23 in 60 (adjusted pace: 36)

Other top scorers:

Taylor Hall: 65 in 82 (adjusted pace: 73)

Leon Draisaitl 51 in 72 (adjusted pace: 65)

Jack Eichel:

Drafted #2 overall in 2015, debuted 2015–16

D0 NHLe: 63 (NCAA – Hockey East)

D+1: Second on BUF in points with 56 in 81 (adjusted pace: 64)

Most common linemates:

Evander Kane: 35 in 65 (adjusted pace: 50)

Sam Reinhart: 42 in 79 (adjusted pace: 49)

Jamie McGinn: 27 in 63 (not incl. 12 in 21 w/ANA after trade) (adjusted cumulative: 42)

Other leading scorers:

Ryan O’Reilly: 60 in 71 (adjusted pace: 79)

Rasmus Ristolainen: 41 in 82 (adjusted pace: 46)

Auston Matthews:

Drafted #1 overall in 2016, debuted in 2016–17

D0 NHLe: 66 (NLA)

D+1: Led TOR in points with 69 in 82 (adjusted pace: 76)

Most common linemates:

William Nylander: 61 in 81 (adjusted pace: 68)

Zach Hyman: 28 in 82 (adjusted pace: 31)

Connor Brown: 36 in 82 (adjusted pace: 39)

Other leading scorers:

James van Riemsdyk: 62 in 82 (adjusted pace: 68)

Nazem Kadri: 61 in 82 (adjusted pace: 67)

Mitch Marner: 61 in 77 (adjusted pace: 71)

Matvei Michkov:

Drafted #7 overall (fifth forward taken in class after Connor Bedard, Leo Carlsson, Adam Fantilli, and Will Smith) in 2023, debuts in 2024–25

D0 NHLe: 56 (KHL)

D+1 NHLe: 72 (KHL)

PHI 2023-24 points by returning forwards:

Travis Konecny: 68 in 76

Owen Tippett: 53 in 78

Joel Farabee: 50 in 82

Morgan Frost: 41 in 71

Scott Laughton: 39 in 82

Sean Couturier: 38 in 74

Tyson Foerster: 33 in 77

Ryan Poehling: 28 in 77

Bobby Brink: 23 in 57

Derek Dunn of The Liberty Yell was the primary individual I went over this concept with. He and I effectively reached the same conclusion and mutually acknowledged this key takeaway from this data: It seems that NHLe is a very, very strong predictor of the performances of players who project as 99% likely to become star producers (who are only pinned as such because Bader caps the model at 99.49%). With that in mind, 70-85 points feels a reasonable mark to hit. However, who’s to say he can’t put up more considering what he could do with HC Sochi and the fact that the baseline roster he’s starting with is superior to those of other similar generational stars in recent(ish) memory? We shall see! It is reasonable to keep expectations somewhat low, but we may not be fully prepared for what Michkov can bring to the Flyers and the NHL.