Flyers takeaways: Has Matvei Michkov turned the corner? Was signing Dan Vladař the team’s best move?

Hockey seasons are generally looked at in blocks, and with Thursday night’s 4-1 win against the Nashville Predators, the Flyers capped off their first 10-game segment.

Things are looking pretty good as they move to 6-3-1, including a 6-1-0 record at home, and are riding a three-game winning streak.

Can they keep it up when the road meets them beginning on Tuesday? Here are three more questions from the Flyers’ win …

This was Matvei Michkov’s best game of the season. The young Russian winger made smart decisions — offensively and defensively — and, as coach Rick Tocchet said, “He’s stacking some good shifts and some good hockey together.”

On the goal by Trevor Zegras, he protected the puck masterfully along the boards, including kicking it to himself to maintain possession, despite having Predators defenseman Nick Blankenburg all over him. This came after he intercepted a seam pass by Johnathan Marchessault to spring Owen Tippett on a breakaway.

Then, while Michkov said postgame that he had been thinking of trying “The Michigan” when he got the puck behind the net — which everyone in the stands, and the ice thought he was going for — he said through the team translator, “but then I saw the pass” and hit Jamie Drysdale for the tally just above the goal line.

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“Heck of a pass by Mike,” Drysdale said, using Michkov’s nickname. When asked if he thought he was going for the lacrosse-type goal, the blueliner said, “You see him behind the net, you never know what he’s going to do.”

It’s fair to say the decision-making on the goal by Michkov showed a ton of maturity and poise. Although he had been practicing “The Michigan” on Wednesday in Voorhees, he smartly chose otherwise.

“It was actually a nice play. He kind of waited until Jamie got in position. So, that’s a big goal,” said Tocchet, who smiled and laughed when he said Michkov didn’t tell him he was thinking of making the lifted wraparound but acknowledged that he “made the right play.”

Having two players, in Michkov and Zegras, who can bring such creativity to the ice adds another layer for the Flyers.

“I think we’ve been needing that for a while now. It forces teams to play us a little bit differently,” defenseman Cam York said. “Usually, we were maybe meat and potatoes, and now we have a lot more skill.”

The Flyers had one power play on Thursday and found the back of the net on it, moving them into a tie for 18th overall (20%). And, for the second time this season, York gave credit to the coaching staff for the prep work on the power play.

After the Flyers’ 5-2 win against the Seattle Kraken, the defenseman said that he should have put a point shot on goal earlier in the game.

“We watched it on video, and in the second period was able to capitalize on it,” he added. “I’ve said it from the start, coaches have done a great job of making us look good out there, and I’ll give the credit to them on that one.”

On Thursday night, after setting up Zegras for a one-timer in the right faceoff circle, he again heaped praise.

“They have their D back on that circle, so there’s a lot more time and space up top if it’s a clean win. That was a great prescout there by Jay [Varady], and we were able to execute it,” he said of the assistant coach.

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Part of the recognition should be the fact that the staff put York back on the power play. The guy who spearheaded the man advantage for USA Hockey, the U.S. National Development Team Program, and the University of Michigan, played just 9 minutes, 36 seconds across the entire stretch last season.

This season, his unit has four of the five power-play goals scored by the Flyers. And he has rekindled his chemistry with Zegras, his US-NTDP and USA Hockey teammate.

“It’s cool. It’s fun. Being away from him for so long after we were so close growing up, it’s definitely pretty special being out there with him,” Zegras said.

However, he did add with a laugh that he wasn’t too happy with the pass and would have to have a chat with him about it.

The doubters and boo birds were out all summer long when Dan Vladař was inked to a two-year deal. They ranted about his lack of experience carrying the load and drilled into his under .900 save percentage.

Well, on Nov. 1, some people may be eating crow. The Czech goalie is now 4-2-0 with the second best goals-against average (1.67), tied for the top save percentage (.939), and has the sixth best goals saved above average (4.87) in the NHL among goalies who have played at least four games.

There’s still a lot of runway, but the last time a Flyers goalie finished a season atop the save percentage leader board was Ron Hextall the year he won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalie (1986-87).

“He was a difference maker,” Tocchet said of Vladař Thursday night. “We were kind of asleep for a couple of periods, and I call him our smelling salt, waking us up a little bit.”

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Vladař put on another show Thursday as he stopped 32 of 33 shots, including all nine high-danger shots marked by Natural Stat Trick. Why is it working so well now for Vladař, who has never really been the guy to carry a workload or maintain consistency?

Kevin Woodley, InGoal Magazine’s senior editor and a goalie guru based in Vancouver, told The Inquirer over the summer that, according to Clear Sight Analytics, Vladař struggled with screens, and when on the penalty kill, rebounds, and one-timers.

Well, Tocchet wants his goalies to see the puck — “Double screens kill a goalie,” he said recently — and his box-and-one defensive-zone strategy allows Vladař to focus on playing the shot cleanly.

“It’s an environment that isn’t asking you to stop bullets in your teeth every night,” Woodley said. “And it might be a really good marriage, right? It might be a really good fit; the numbers will reflect better because they’re not being asked to do that as often as they were in the past, and they can just sort of play their game.”

And while the Predators may have put a ton of shots on, the Flyers weathered the storm in part because of Vladař

“Felt like they obviously had an intent of throwing a lot of pucks on the net; they were throwing them from the corner, from the wall,” defenseman Travis Sanheim said. “So, that kind of creates a scramble a little bit, and you end up in the [defensive] zone a little bit more than you probably want to … Just trying to weather it, and try to be there for Vlad as much as we can. And he bailed us out along the way as well.”