Charlie O'Connor just added a wrinkle to the Matvei Michkov situation, and it leaves the Flyers in an awkward spot.
Daniel Briere's version is that Michkov and his agent told him they weren't the source of Weekes' report. Rick Tocchet, meanwhile, waved Weekes off as a "blogger."
O'Connor isn't buying the second part. He believes Briere is telling the truth about what Michkov and the agent said, but he doesn't believe the report came from nowhere.
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That's a fair read of the situation. Weekes is, in O'Connor's words, very plugged in and breaks a ton of news, so the idea that he invented something doesn't hold up. Someone told him something.
Who that someone is stays unanswered tonight, and nobody on the record has filled the gap. Calling a reporter a blogger doesn't make the question go away.
The timing makes it louder. The Flyers are 5-10-5 and sit 27th in the NHL, and they're in Edmonton tonight with the game still in progress as we write. A Monday win in Vancouver doesn't change the mood around a team with a minus-21 goal differential.
Michkov, 21, has 10 goals and 14 points in 20 games, but he is a minus-11. A scoring winger with that rating on a team this deep in the standings is exactly the kind of player whose name gets attached to every rumor.
Is Briere trying to head off a Hellebuyck-style saga?
That's the comparison spreading among fans, and the names being put next to Michkov's are Connor Hellebuyck in Winnipeg and Dylan Larkin in Detroit. Nothing in what's been said publicly confirms that Briere has either situation in mind.
But the instinct would make sense. Look at what happened Tuesday in Winnipeg, where Hellebuyck, drafted by the Jets and now a Devil, sat out New Jersey's visit. Henrik Lundqvist's take on Connor Hellebuyck sitting out shows how quickly a player's role in a story like that gets questioned.
The Jets didn't run a video tribute either, a decision Mike McIntyre reported ahead of the game. You can read about Connor Hellebuyck's return to Winnipeg if you missed it. Jake Allen took the loss in net as Kyle Connor scored twice in a 4-2 Winnipeg win.
Larkin's Red Wings have lost four straight and sit 25th, so Detroit has its own noise to deal with. Whatever happened there, a general manager who sees that sort of attention coming would want to shut a story down early.
My view: a quick, public denial is the right call, but it only works if the source never surfaces. If Weekes' information was real, Briere's statement closes one door and leaves another wide open.
The Flyers visit Columbus on Saturday, and Michkov, Briere and Tocchet will all be asked again.
This article was written with the help of artificial intelligence, based on public reports and official sources.
Should Daniel Briere address the Michkov report publicly again?
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