Man of the Week: Matvei Michkov
KHL.ru’s weekly column ‘Man of the Week’ continues with Matvei Michkov. The young HC Sochi forward, loaned from SKA St. Petersburg, is making headlines for different reasons – let’s discover them all continuing on reading this article.
It was late December, close to the KHL trade deadline, that Matvei Michkov was announced to have been loaned from SKA to HC Sochi in what it seemed to be a puzzling move. From the one hand, a young talent like him needs to play – and HC Sochi seemed to be a prime destination to achieve this goal as the Black Sea franchise needed talent forward and has plenty of spot to offer the blue-chip prospect. There, Michkov could feel what it was to have more responsibilities and to play more of a 200-feet game.
“When I first came here, I realized that the style of play was different for SKA and Sochi,” he explained in a recent interview. “In Sochi, you have to play better on defense to be able to switch to offense faster. SKA is a more attacking team that scores a lot of goals. When I came to Sochi, I started paying more attention to defense. In a short time, I had to learn how to do it: to play my position, to get back.”
From the other hand, however, in SKA Michkov could enjoy a more competitive environment, have more quality in his teammates, and be able to breath postseason atmosphere. But fast forward two months later, it can be easily said that the move paid off. Michkov was quick to score his first goals, having his first tally in HC Sochi’s losing effort in a home 3:4 SO defeat to Ak Bars. In a team that struggled to get wins at all, Michkov was a ray of light and a breath of fresh air, with a few remarkable performances like his two-point game against his employer, SKA, and a strong showing in HC Sochi’s 4:3 win over Spartak in Moscow on Jan 31.
However, there were also bad moments. For example, in the Feb 2 game against Vityaz, Michkov showed bad tempers and his penalties imposed a heavy challenge on his team. After conceding a goal after just 46 seconds, Michkov was whistled a penalty for a foul play on Vityaz’s forward Nikita Goncharov. The young forward wasn’t happy since the beginning, and it didn’t took long to Scott Wilson to double the hosts’ advantage on the consequent man advantage. Visibly unhappy, Michkov exited the sin bin just to be forced to return right away – this time because of an argument with the refs. Vityaz took full advantage of this new powerplay, with Dmitry Kugryshev making it a 3:0 game, virtually removing Sochi any chance for the night. Maxim Tretyak was benched, and Michkov had another trip to the penalty box with fewer than five minutes to the final hooter. True, this time he was lucky – Sochi didn’t allow another. But he renewed his personal record for penalties in one single game.
Right now, Michkov has seven goals and thirteen points with Sochi – more than respectable numbers considering his age and the team’s difficulty to find the opposition crease. With the regular season coming to an end, it’s interesting to see what will happen with Michkov right now. He said to be ready to line up for HC Sochi’s team in the JHL, Kapitan Stupino, who is currently leading the Silver Division of the Western Conference. Sochi’s farm team in the VHL, HK Rostov, has mathematically lost any playoff hope for the current season, and thus is not an option for Michkov.
Will the risky move of loaning out its best prospect work for SKA? And for Michkov? Only time will tell, and so far, the move has had a good effect on the young gun’s development. However, the hard part is just about to start.
