Flyers hope to remedy its power play and what ails Matvei Michkov ahead of Sunday in Toronto

TORONTO ― There was a lot of hope about the Flyers’ power play when the season started.

Matvei Michkov and his creativity and nose-for-the-net arrived over the summer. Retired in-house specialists like John LeClair and Patrick Sharp were consulted and involved in meetings.

They were all expected to help turn around one of the NHL’s worst power plays — dead-last in the NHL for the past three seasons.

Friendly reminder, it wasn’t even the same coaching staff during the 2021-22 seasons.

Things started well this season, with five goals in the first four games and the league’s 11th-best man advantage at 26.3%. Even Michkov was doing his part with his first five points in the NHL, all coming on the man-advantage.

But then it seemingly fell off a cliff, and across the last 35 games, they have potted just 12 pucks. They have the third-worst percentage (13.6%). Before New Year’s Eve, they had a big goose egg in 16 opportunities across eight games.

“To me, it’s not seeing the ice,” coach John Tortorella said Dec. 23 in Pittsburgh, a game in which they didn’t have a power play.

So, while there had been some tinkering over the season, things started to really change in December. First, for that Dec. 23 game, Rasmus Ristolainen took Egor Zamula’s spot on the second power-play unit. Then, at the Flyers’ first practice after the holiday break in Anaheim, Calif., Noah Cates was added to the same unit in place of Joel Farabee.

But the game against the San Jose Sharks saw the biggest shift with Michkov demoted to the second unit. He started playing with Bobby Brink, Cates, Tyson Foerster, and Ristolainen.

The top unit now featured Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Farabee, Morgan Frost, and Jamie Drysdale — and they scored twice against San Jose, with one goal overturned on a coach’s challenge for offside, before potting another on Thursday in Las Vegas.

Each goal that counted came seconds after the faceoff deep in the offensive zone to start the power play. And each came off the stick of Konecny after he received a pass from Tippett. For a team that has struggled on its zone entries, setting up and moving the puck quickly, the sharp passes by Tippett to an open Konecny have been key.

“We’ve let them play,” Tortorella said after the team practiced Saturday in Etobicoke, Ontario. “We’re just trying to find open ice. It’s worked off a pre-scout from the team we’re playing, how they’re going to kill — especially off the faceoffs. But some of that was just dynamic play and finding the seam. That’s what I like about the one group, that they found a couple of seams. I think they’ve moved the puck quicker than we have been, not as deliberate, and I think it’s opened up some plays for us.”

Is everything fixed? No. They had a power-play opportunity against Vegas later in the third period they couldn’t score on when down by a pair of goals. And they had two other chances against the Sharks.

On Sunday night, they will face the NHL’s 10th-best penalty kill (82%) in the Toronto Maple Leafs. Although the Leafs recently went 4-for-4 in a home-and-home with the Islanders — the NHL’s worst power play at 11% — they allowed a goal in each of the three prior games.

The Russian phenom has a lot to learn. As everyone knows by now, Tortorella wants to make sure Michkov can play both sides of the puck and away from it, too. But while the 20-year-old is learning more about the game on the ice, he’s also learning what it takes to be the best off of it.

“I think there’s some struggles with him right now, just understanding the schedule of the National Hockey League, the conditioning that you need for the National Hockey League, how you eat,” Tortorella said. “Before you even get on the ice, there’s so much to learn about playing in this league, and we’re getting him so early now, so that’s a big plus for us.”

Michkov has two points in his last 10 games with a plus-minus of minus-13 while averaging 15 minutes, 20 seconds of ice time. Tortorella recently tinkered with his forward lines, and the right winger is now playing with Frost and Scott Laughton. In the two games, Michkov has two shots on goal and is minus-2 but did make some crisp passes to Laughton for shot attempts.

“He’s always looking for you,” Laughton said. “He creates a ton of offense so it’s been good that way of playing in the O-zone with two really highly offensive guys, in Frosty and him. It’s been a lot of fun. So I think we [can be] better together, and I think we can bring that.”

According to Laughton, they communicate by going over things on the iPad on the bench. Tortorella said the team translator, who has traveled with the team during the five-day road trip, has been utilized during intermissions and after games to communicate.

And he doesn’t need a translator to know how competitive he is.

“I think the biggest compliment you can give a player is when you call him a hockey player. He’s a hockey player,” Tortorella said. “He loves playing.”

Goalie Sam Ersson was not on the ice in Canada for the Flyers practice. ... The Flyers ran the same forward lines at practice.