Danny Brière said he was shocked by how prepared Matvei Michkov was for his exit meeting.
The 20-year-old already had a plan for the summer and his means to attack it, the Flyers general manager told the media at the end of the team's cleanout on Saturday in Voorhees.
It was superstar-level stuff, something Brière has only ever seen in a few other players before, and what he's definitely glad the Philadelphia Flyers seem to have now.
"He's just got an impressive mind, and mindset and approach," Brière said. "I left the meeting laughing at myself, like 'Well, if he accomplishes half of the things he has on his list to do, we're in really good shape.'"
Because that's a superstar in the making, and as Michkov's rookie year went on, it only became clearer to everyone in the building.
"He's probably the one guy that I've played with in my career that he wants to be the best player in the NHL," said Travis Konecny, who finished the season on Michkov's line alongside Sean Couturier. "He believes that he can be, and you can't teach that.
"That's just something he wants, and that he believes in, and that's a powerful thing."
It's a sign that the Flyers are on the right track, too, and that he'll play a major role in propelling them forward in the years ahead.
This past season, by no means, went smoothly for the Flyers or their heralded Russian prospect, but by the end, Michkov finished as the team's leading goal-scorer and the NHL's rookie goal-scoring leader with 26 tallies.
The high-end skill – that the team desperately needed and that its fans desperately wanted to see – was evident from the jump, and so was the vision and anticipation that allowed him to react within even the smallest windows of time.
There were roadblocks and setbacks, of course, benchings and scratches, too, which were all bound to happen in a rookie NHL campaign and one where the majority of it was coached by John Tortorella, no less.
But none of it ever seemed to discourage Michkov as he pieced together what became the Flyers' highest-scoring rookie season since Mikael Renberg put up 82 points in 1993-94. Michkov completed his Year 1 with 63 points.
"There were some difficulties," Michkov said through interpreter Slava Kuznetsov on Saturday. "But we overcome them."
And from the rising star winger's view, strive for greater.
Even though he ended the season with the team and the rookie goal-scoring lead, Michkov said he believed he could've scored more, and that the Flyers' season overall could've been better.
He said he wasn't happy with his results and wants Year 2, for himself and the team, to be an improvement.
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Scoring more is part of the equation for him, taking on more minutes is, too, and he also made a point that he wants to keep getting a better grasp on English so that he can communicate easier with his teammates.
But Michkov also said that every facet of his game should still be considered a work in progress.
"There's no skill, nothing yet in the game, that I'm feeling 100 percent yet," Michkov said through Kuznetsov. "There's always room to improve."
Even after what, by nearly everyone else's account, should be considered a successful jump to North America and the NHL.
But then again, that kind of thinking is just superstar-level stuff.
Brière saw it all year from up top, and then in his final sit-down with Michkov before breaking for the summer, after seeing and hearing all the things the young Flyers star laid out at his points of improvement for the next few months.
"There's something special around him," the GM said.
And Konecny, as one of the productive veterans here to help guide the organization's rebuild through, he's had a front row seat to it at ice-level the whole time.
He knows that Michkov is someone different, someone special.
"When you talk to [Michkov], like, he believes it," Konecny said. "He wants to be the top scorer in the league. That's where his head's at."
It's superstar-level stuff.
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