Many people from fans to writers to bloggers to experts, including myself, wanted the Washington Capitals to take Matvei Michkov. They couldn’t even if they wanted to as the Philadelphia Flyers swooped in to take him at number seven before the Caps were on the clock at number eight.
It was a blessing in disguise and even the clout chasing blogger in myself wasn’t mad the Caps selected Ryan Leonard instead.
You know why?
One, I grew up. I don’t care about egos and I understand the business side of sports.
Two, I got an interesting message on the morning of the first round of the draft from a fellow reader.
First off I’ll shout him out. He was always a friendly elementary school teacher I didn’t have but we were partners with in the second grade play. Mr. Hockensmith is great and I’m glad we reconnected when I graduated from college, I sent him my blog link plugs, and he started reading my articles.
I never take that support for granted.
Anyway he told me the morning of the draft that he read an RMNB article about Michkov saying that several scouts including a Caps scout were unimpressed by Michkov because of his cocky attitude.
Now when draft night happened Michkov got called by the Flyers and many folks thought he wasn’t thrilled that he is going to Philly. I mean I wouldn’t blame him either.
Low and behold, even if he didn’t he didn’t want to go to the Caps either.
Now usually my haters will call me out for saying this is my chance to flame him for not coming to what I consider is a “storied” franchise but others consider as a wannabe.
But no, I’ll take Leonard any day. I watched his interviews. I read the articles about him. He’s the guy. You’ll see more tomorrow.
Sergei Fedotov, a Russian agent who’s friends with Evgeny Kuznetsov and represents Michkov, said that he had no desire to go to Washington.
He didn’t want to go to the Arizona Coyotes either but then again who does?
He wanted to avoid Arizona and Washington for various reasons.
The “various reason” for Washington is obviously being in the shadow of the spotlight of a Russian superstar Michkov will never be in Alex Ovechkin. I can also confirm Alex Ovechkin is no Dez Bryant, Terrell Owens, or Antonio Brown like Michkov desires to be.