What’s next for Matvei Michkov and the Philadelphia Flyers?

Rumblings have come out of Russia that Philadelphia Flyers top prospect Matvei Michkov could be on his way to North America to play in the National Hockey League (NHL) much earlier than anticipated.

Today on Daily Faceoff Live, insider Frank Seravalli shines a light on the Michkov-Philly situation.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Smoke or fire, or false alarm. Can we get an update on the Matvei Michkov situation, the rumblings of him maybe getting out of his contract in the KHL and coming over to the NHL earlier than expected.

Frank Seravalli: Yeah so that’s a four-alarm fire. That’s billowing out smoke, the tough part is it’s tough to wallow through all that smoke because the Flyers can’t say anything, they can’t even directly communicate with SKA St. Petersburg to negotiate a buyout, it has to be a third party, mainly Michkov’s agents. It MUST be paid for by Michkov or his agent, the money can’t come from the Flyers. Now the next part of this equation is the Flyers aren’t going to say boo in between now and then, they are so afraid of having this go sideways.

Frank Seravalli: All they want to do is get Michkov over to North America and sign him to an NHL contract as quickly as possible because not only do they want to develop this kid but they just went through a tough situation with Ivan Fedotov, their 6-foot-7 goaltender. Who on his way after signing an NHL contract was picked up by the Russian military and forced into one year of conscription service and was banished to Siberia for the year. On the back end of that, he was then forced to sign another contract, even though he had an enforceable contract with the Flyers to play one more season with CSKA Moscow, the Red Army Team.

Frank Seravalli: So until the Flyers can actually pick Michkov up at the airport and get his signature on a contract, I don’t think we will hear much officially, but the reason why it’s a fire and not smoke is because SKA St. Petersburg is sending plenty of smoke signals through the media that they are down and ready to negotiate.