O'Connor: On Wednesday, Michkov emphasized winning and team success over himself, and that's a great sign

VOORHEES -- For the past year, the Philadelphia Flyers and Matvei Michkov were defined in large part by what they couldn't say, and what others said for them.
Flyers general manager Daniel Briere and his front office didn't want to rock the boat and put Michkov in a bad spot with SKA St. Petersburg, the KHL club that owned his rights. Michkov himself was literally across the ocean, with only a limited knowledge of the English language even if he had wanted to speak directly to information-starved Flyers fans. So by necessity, they ceded the narrative to others -- to bloggers and tweeters, and most of all, to fans dreaming on the potential of the Mad Russian, watching Russian-language KHL cli...