Rick Tocchet just blew up the hockey world with a flat-out denial of the Matvei Michkov report, claiming it was “not true” and calling Kevin Weekes’ scoop “somebody blogging something.” Seriously, did he think nobody would notice? This isn’t some random dude on Twitter, man, this is Kevin Weekes, and Tocchet’s indignant dismissal just spun the whole messy situation into even more chaos for the Philadelphia Flyers.
Philly’s Messy Attempt to Clean Up a Bombshell
The whole drama kicked off when Kevin Weekes dropped a bombshell report that Matvei Michkov, a Flyer, likely wanted a fresh start away from the team, citing some serious “internal turmoil” as the reason. Naturally, Philly was right back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Give them a little credit, though, because the Flyers tried to get ahead of the story. Michkov himself apparently explained his thoughts the morning after his agent initially denied the reports. Then Flyers general manager Daniel Briere had to hold a press conference, which was “good-but-not-great,” focusing on the task at hand and admitting the team was unhappy and needed to turn things around. It got so serious that Briere, along with Keith Jones and Dan Hilferty, flew all the way out to Edmonton to meet with Michkov, Tocchet, and the rest of the team. You gotta think that was a stern message about effort, especially with how they played later that night.
Tocchet’s Denial Raises More Questions Than Answers
But then came Rick Tocchet. After the morning skate, the media got to talk to Michkov, Nick Seeler, and Sean Couturier, so they already had a pretty good idea of how the team was trying to tackle this outside noise. Tocchet, though, seemed to be on a completely different wavelength. When Jackie Spiegel asked him directly about Weekes’ report, Tocchet was indignant, straight up saying, “There’s nothing to talk about because it’s not true. There’s nothing to report.” He doubled down, claiming, “You can’t comment on somebody blogging something that’s not true.” Hold up, Rick, because that’s where the wheels came off. Kevin Weekes is definitely not blogging. The guy’s whole thing is dropping breaking news videos from wild places; this time, he pulled over on the shoulder of a highway to drop the Michkov nugget. Plus, Tocchet knows who Weekes is! This isn’t some rando with a few thousand followers making stuff up. Weekes has over 360,000 followers on social media, he’s got a solid track record on similar situations, and he even works for one of the league’s major rights holders, just like Tocchet did. And here’s the kicker: nothing came out to actually refute Weekes’ report. When Spiegel followed up, specifically asking about Weekes’ use of “internal turmoil,” Tocchet once again “spun a web,” only admitting they had “a little bit of that stuff last year.” Man, if that’s your denial, you’re not exactly clearing anything up, are you?
This whole situation leaves a ton of questions hanging over the Flyers. Tocchet’s refusal to acknowledge the credibility of the report, while simultaneously admitting to “internal turmoil” from last year, just makes you wonder what’s really going on behind the scenes in Philly.
And hey, switching gears for a second, a tough night for our Seattle Kraken earlier this week. The Carolina Hurricanes took them down 4-1. Gotta regroup and come back stronger, boys. Always looking forward to seeing our guys battle on the ice.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Broad Street Hockey.
Leave a Reply