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Limited playing time: Matvei Michkov likes a post criticizing Rick Tocchet
Mathis Therrien
Limited playing time: Matvei Michkov likes a post criticizing Rick Tocchet
Credit: Getty Images

The Philadelphia Flyers are really off to a dreadful start to the season, as they currently sit in last place in the Eastern Conference and 30th overall in the NHL.

Only the Vancouver Canucks and the Chicago Blackhawks are doing worse than Rick Tocchet's team, which has a record of 4-10-4.

After making the playoffs last season—and advancing to the second round—more was expected from the Flyers, but nothing is going right, and fans are starting to voice their dissatisfaction.

What stands out most is the criticism directed at Tocchet and his use of players.

Fans are strongly criticizing the ice time given to young players, and this frustration seems to have even made its way into the locker room.

In fact, we saw proof of this recently when Matvei Michkov liked an Instagram post criticizing Rick Tocchet and his players' ice time.

Yes, you read that right—Matvei Michkov's official Instagram account left a heart on the post above, which takes the time to analyze ice time and call out Rick Tocchet, Michkov's head coach.

The post criticizes the fact that Porter Martone is playing less than 12 minutes, as well as the fact that Michkov—who ranks 10th in the NHL in goals with 10—isn't playing more than around 15 minutes.

And the cherry on top is that former Canadiens player Christian Dvorak is playing nearly 20 minutes per game.

It's obviously questionable to see such ice time allocations, especially for a young team looking to rebuild around talented prospects.

Martone is having a disappointing start to the season with just three goals and eight points in 18 games—a far cry from the ten points he scored in nine games upon his NHL debut last season.

In short, it's not just the fans who seem frustrated with the Flyers; the players in the locker room also don't seem to be the biggest fans of Rick Tocchet—at least as far as Matvei Michkov is concerned.

We know the young Russian has a strong personality and isn't the hardest worker, so we'll see how things play out and whether Daniel Brière makes any changes soon.

In Brief

– Things are going badly.

– Note.

– Stay tuned.