The Flames have to make THIS call...

With the crazy report from Kevin Weeks that Matvei Michkov wants out of Philadelphia, the Calgary Flames have of course been linked to the young Russian. Whether a trade will happen or not is yet to be known, however one thing is clear, the Flames have to make this call and at least inquire. We're going to get to all that more in this video, but first I want to welcome you to Flames Digest, I'm Mark Griffith. If you're new around here and you love the Flames, make sure to subscribe so you can stay up to date on all the latest news, updates, reports, and rumors revolving around your Calgary Flames. Welcome you to the Flames Digest family, and that's all about maybe acquiring another Matt Bay. And yesterday's video, we obviously went over, you know, Nikita Kucherov, talked about him, and already on that video, there were loads of Michkov comments, so of course, had to make a video on that one as well. But I did also want to say, it is, of course, Remembrance Day today, so I know by the time this video is out, obviously, it's past, you know, 11 o'clock, 11, 11, but still gotta say, lest we forget. Obviously, that is very, very important. But let's get into Michkov here, as if you missed the original report, it was kind of this weird selfie video by Kevin Weeks, but he said, breaking news from multiple league sources with the Flyers' unimpressive start and internal turmoil, Michkov would likely want a new start elsewhere. He's in the last year of his contract and is a prime trade candidate moving forward. So boom, Michkov wants out. He's the latest in a slew, a flurry of players who have wanted out of where they are currently playing. I mean, we just saw that with Hellebuyck, Kadri, of course, you know, Brady Kachuk. There are just so many names we can add to the list. How valid is this report? Well, Emily Kaplan here says, following up on this Kevin Weeks bombshell, I've been told that Michkov has not formally requested trade from the Flyers. In fact, this report was news to the Flyers front office. And there's a lot of, you know, he say, she say going on here with, did this actually happen? The only way we'll know is if, you know, Michkov speaks out about it. Cause even Danny Briere, GM over there in Philly, of course says, About trading him says, no, that's not the plan at all. So I'm unsure if, you know, a trade is really going to happen or not. It's. But it's interesting if he does want out or not. It reminds me so much of, quite frankly, the Nemitz situation. Remember there was this report in the summer that Nemitz asked out of New Jersey. And then all of a sudden it was, no, he never did. But then he ended up getting traded anyway. I could see something very similar happening here. Now, Mitch Gobb, he brings offense. And that's what the Flames are mostly looking for. Not only now, but for the future as well. And Mitch Gobb, you know, he's got 11 goals this year. His expected goals are up. His shooting percentage is above 25%. So the kid obviously can snipe and he's very, very good. It's not the coveted, you know, young right shot center, just young center in general to be, you know, one of the main pieces of this rebuild or I should say even just, you know, future Flames team once they're ready to contend. He's a winger, of course, but he could, you know, it makes more sense to trade for him than a Kucherov, I guess is the best way to put that. In terms of the contract, obviously right now he's still on his ELC. But he'll be demanding, you know, something pretty big when that obviously does expire at the end of the season. Will be an RFA, but still, we'll have to see what kind of goes on there. But, of course. Everyone started talking about what would it take to acquire this guy. So in terms of Flames specific, a great account on Instagram, Let's Talk Flames, says, what would it take for the Flames to acquire Mitch Gobb? And this is, again, just an awesome account. I really like following it. If you love the Flames, you have Instagram, you should obviously go give them a follow. You probably see me in their likes there. But, you know, what would it take? There are certain assets, so potential assets in play. Anyway, this Obviously, there's more than just these ones listed here, But this is what. Let's Talk Flames put out there, so not including draft picks because those are obviously always in play, puts out Hunter Brustevich, Cullen Potter, Ethan Wittenbach, and Sam Hanzik, which is all, you know, very interesting. All players who could potentially be part of the core for the Flames going forward. For me, I don't really want to trade away Wittenbach. I'd much rather see how that goes once he's ready to develop into an NHL player. And then if it doesn't work, then you can explore trade options. Otherwise, all those other guys, I wouldn't love to lose any of them. I know Cullen Potter's been disappointing this season. I wouldn't love to lose any of them, but it could potentially happen with Hanzik. I mean, it definitely could happen because it makes space for Michkov if Hanzik isn't there. And Hanzik actually, I don't have a graphic for it and we'll talk about it later when we get into tonight's game, but he was actually assigned to the Wranglers today. So it sounds like he's on the path back to being healthy and playing for the Flames once again. But Logan Gordon, he got in on the action too and just posted this on Twitter, just made a Michkov jersey amid the report, obviously, that he... Supposedly, allegedly, reportedly wants out of Philly. And I thought that was pretty funny, just already putting up a custom jersey. Another account here, Sportsaholic says, to Calgary, Michkov, to Philly, a 2028 first top 10 protected Jack Hextall, 2029 second round pick, 2027 third round pick. Thoughts? And I personally think that is way too much to give up. I would maybe do that trade without the first rounder in there. But are you kidding me? I mean, is Michkov even worth a first-round pick at this point? I mean, I know he is, but still, this is way too much, at least in my opinion. I'm sure you guys will probably agree with that, but I don't like that one at all, to be quite honest with you. I think that's way too much to give up. We shouldn't be throwing around first-round picks. Sea of Red Central says, Guys, let me ask you something, and to be clear, this is not me endorsing or wanting this. I'm merely asking a question. Would you give up the 20-27 first for Michkov? Everyone is saying it's a weaker draft. Are you going to find a player as good as him in the draft? And Michkov is really, really good, but it's not like he's Celebrini, you know? So it's a toss-up for me. Again, I already said it. I wouldn't be too inclined in trading away a first-round pick. I think that's steep, but it could happen. If he were a center and were exactly what we need, then yes, I'd be more willing. But another winger... It could happen. And there were a lot of, you know, comments on yesterday's video about how, hey, Kucherov might want to play with some good young Russians. He could play with, you know, Grittin and Sunyaev. Well, throw in another Matvei in there, get Mityagov, and maybe we could just have all of the Russians we could ever want and rebuild the, you know, glory Red Wings teams. So I don't know. It could happen. I didn't throw in any of my own mock trades because it's just so hard to tell what his value is compared to someone like Kucherov, but feel free to drop any mock trades in the comments and yeah, let me know, would you be willing to trade for him and would you be willing to give up a first round pick, I think is the key question here, if he's even going to be traded away at all. But that does bring us to tonight's game as the Flames are once again playing at... Home in the Waffle House in the Saddle Dome. It's the last time that the Rangers will ever be visiting. This one happening at 6.30 p.m. tonight. It's one of those Amazon games as well, which I really do like. So if you're not going to this game, I really do like those broadcasts quite a bit. Should be a good one. Again, that one happening at 6.30. And we have quite a few lineup notes, actually. So as per Pat Steinberg, Othman says he's a full go for Wednesday night. This was tweeted yesterday. He'll return to the lineup versus his former team, the New York Rangers. Othman has missed the last six games. with an upper body injury. Now, of course, he was traded kind of at the buzzer beater trade deadline trade. It was traded for Jacob Etaglia, but he's healthy. He's ready to go. He has missed the last few games here. So these are actually the projected lines for tonight. Farabee with Backlund and Coronado. Sunyaev with Frosty and Sharky. Grittin with Pospisil and Strome again. And then Othman in there instead of Stromgrin with Castagna and Klapka. Hanley and Nemitz, Middleton, Whitecloud, Perek. Kuznetsov and Cooley is your starter which is good to note as well. It looked like it was going to be Wolfe but it actually is Cooley as per Eric Francis here. He said Dustin Wolfe in the starters net for tonight's game against the Rangers. That actually is not true. It will be Cooley but another note he adds in here is that Huberto was in a regular jersey again so sounds like he could be coming back sooner than later. There was actually a tweet I can't remember who it was by yesterday But it said, coming to an arena near you soon, and it was a photo. photo of Huberto, so sounds like he could be coming back relatively soon here. If we do get into the all-time record, it's actually really interesting to me for this one. So in terms of the franchise, which includes the Atlanta Flames, we have 63 wins, 45 regulation losses. There have been 15 ties and then six Daryl Sutter points in there, but just in the Calgary era, it's way less. I mean, it makes sense. Atlanta's on the east, but it's crazy that since we moved to Calgary, We haven't played them that much, but just 39-39-6 there. The last meeting was... was a 4-0 loss, which was too bad, but hopefully that changes again tonight at 6.30 p.m., but good to know that we have the all-time series lead over one of the NHL's oldest teams. Not the New York Americans, but the New York Rangers. In terms of the standings now, we know where we sit. We're in the mix because it's so early in the season where we're at 17 points. Right now, second wild card Card has 21. Are we in the playoff mix? Are we in kind of a tank bowl? There's... Four teams below us in just the Western Conference. And Philly, obviously, over in the east as well, below us as well. There are some not-so-great teams there. It was interesting as well that it is Cooley because, as we know, all of our goalies are rested. Both Wolff and Cooley have been playing great lately. Lately, Sergey. Sergeyev is just in there because he's played a game. Obviously, he's not up with the Flames right now, and he might not see any more time. But, yeah, it's interesting to note that Husker could have chose. But the way he kind of does it is once a goalie loses, he throws in the other one. Unless, of course, it's a back-to-back. And we could have seen Wolfe in here because I actually noticed that he is quite a bit better against the Rangers in his career than he is against the rest of the NHL, I suppose is a good way to put it. Or at least in the last three games compared to the last ten. So he usually actually plays pretty good against the Rangers. But still, again, Husker decided to go with Cooley, which is absolutely fair. And one last thing I'll show, because I always show it before the game, is the special teams. The key once again, we still have the fourth best power play. We're still top 10 in penalty kill. That'll be a major thing here. The Rangers are kind of on a bounce back season right now. After last year went so horribly. So I'll actually be very interested. I haven't watched a single Rangers game yet this year against any other opponents. So it'll be very interesting to see what kind of team they are after last year went so bad. But hopefully it's at least an exciting game for sure. Now let's get into the comment of the day to wrap up this video, as we love to do here on the channel. It comes from that video yesterday about Kucherov, which I knew you guys would absolutely eat up. So thank you for the support. But just a thumbnail here. It says, no dice for Kuch. One of the best players of all time, what we got going on now, Matt, Mičkov and that's, that's just the key of what yesterday was. I'd already, you know, uploaded the video it had released. And then we got the Kevin Weeks report that it was about Mičkov. So I knew there would be a little blend of the two, but I lean more towards if we're going to go for one Mitch gov, do we absolutely need either of them? Not necessarily for the right price. Of course, you'll do anything, but it's good to speculate anyway. Keeps us having a good time no matter what. Always just hypothesizing and fantasizing about who you could have on your team like you're playing a video game. Thank you so much for watching this video. Please subscribe if you like what you saw here today and have a wonderful rest of your day.