Concerns about not being able to get Matvei Michkov out of Russia and a lack of reliable on-field scouting pushed the talented winger down a few spots in the 2023 draft. The rebuilding Philadelphia Flyers drafted him with the seventh overall pick, saying they were willing to wait for Michkov to play out the final three years of his KHL contract.

Two years ahead of schedule, the Flyers brought Michkov to North America and he could play his first game in the Bettman League as early as Friday. He could also be the best prospect to come out of Russia since Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin arrived in 2005.

The 19-year-old is part of the newest contingent of Russian talent that continues to flow into the NHL despite the war in Ukraine and the lack of an international transfer agreement between the KHL and NHL.

“It’s good that guys aren’t afraid to try a season here, away from their parents and friends,” Winnipeg Jets prospect Nikita Chibrikov, 21, said last month at an event organized by the NHL Players’ Association to promote the league’s rookies.

“It’s very difficult. You come to another country. For us it’s like another world,” Chibrikov added. “Some don’t speak the language. It’s like you’re trying to live another life.”
Michkov was the second of 23 players from Russia selected by NHL teams in 2023. In the last draft, 24 players were added to that total. In 2022, the first draft year since Russia invaded Ukraine, 20 players from that country were selected.

The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has since banned Russia and its ally Belarus from all of its tournaments, including the World Junior Championships for 20-and-under and 18-and-under teams, which serve as a golden opportunity to scout young talent. The NHL has also cut business ties with Russia since the start of the war. Its teams, due to travel bans and security concerns, have fewer scouts following KHL and other league teams in Russia.

Steven Warshaw, a marketing executive who worked in Moscow in the 1990s for the Pittsburgh Penguins, which invested in a club after the fall of the Soviet Union, estimates that 90 percent less scouting is done in Russia than before the war. That has cast a shadow over player evaluations. He also says more money is being invested to keep their best players in Russia.

“They’re keeping a lot of guys who would normally make the jump here,” Warshaw said. “Nobody wants to end up in Allentown making less than the league minimum salary . They’d rather be in St. Petersburg, making hundreds of thousands of dollars and being stars, speaking their own language, eating food they’re used to and being comfortable in general.”

That’s why Chibrikov, a 2021 second-round pick who made his NHL debut last season, is happy to see his countrymen take the same chance he did. He spent most of last season in the American Hockey League with the Manitoba Moose, also based in Winnipeg.

“If you want to come here and try what you learned in Russia, you have to know that this is the best league in the world. You have to adapt,” Chibrikov said. “A lot of players are faster. Guys need more time.”

If Michkov goes straight to the NHL, others, like Ivan Miroshnichenko, the Washington Capitals’ first-round pick in 2022, spent last season between the NHL and AHL. That could well be how his next few months play out. Another Flyers prospect, Belarusian goaltender Alexei Kolosov, could start the season in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. He’s expected to be the first goalie recalled, though, and the organization holds him in high regard.

The Flyers managed to get Michkov out of Russia ahead of schedule, but they had to wait nearly two years for goaltender Ivan Fedotov, who signed an NHL contract in May 2022. Shortly before reaching the United States, Fedotov was abducted by Russian authorities and taken to a military base in the Arctic Circle for a year of military service.

Fedotov played last season with CSKA Moscow, the KHL’s other rich franchise along with SKA St. Petersburg, before seeing his contract abruptly terminated last spring. With the field now cleared, he joined the Flyers, with whom he recently signed a contract extension.

“When people ask how these guys got out, the simple answer is money,” Warshaw said.

Michkov, speaking through Chibrikov, said he was “very grateful to the Flyers general manager and organization” and was excited to wear the uniform. Having Fedotov and Yegor Zamula around should help with his acclimatization to Philadelphia, which he called very her — in English.

Zamula, whose adjustment to the WHL when he arrived in 2017 was rocky, leaving him practically in tears when he returned home with only a chair and a TV for company, hopes he can make life easier for Michkov, much like Ovechkin has done with Miroshnichenko and the other Russians over the years.

“It’s my turn now, because I know how hard it is, to do my best to make him comfortable here,” Zemula said. “It’s different, for sure, but he’s going to get through it.”