Emily Kaplan says there’s some kind of ‘agenda’ around Michkov trade request talk

The purported Matvei Michkov trade request chatter has quickly grown into a monster no one could have really fathomed.

But then Kevin Weekes dropped his bombshell report about Michkov requesting a trade, and the entire NHL stopped spinning for a second.

Then, the entire league began spinning in reverse when Emily Kaplan, Weekes’ own colleague at ESPN, quickly shot down Weekes’ rumor.

Kaplan wasn’t alone.

Numerous other reports began trickling out, confirming what Kaplan, not what Weekes, had said. That situation put the entire situation on its head.

Now, Kaplan doubled down on her report during an appearance on Daily Faceoff’s Morning Cuppa Hockey. There, the ESPN insider stated that there might be an agenda for the rumor getting out there.

“There’s a reason when someone puts something out there… there’s some kind of agenda, maybe they’re trying to push something forward…”

Those are some pretty incendiary comments. Considering that the bulk of the reporting has focused on the Flyers being blindsided by the alleged Michkov trade request, they’re not the ones putting the news out there.

If there was anyone looking to push something, it would have to be the Michkov camp.

The Flyers were caught completely offguard by the news

During her appearance, Kaplan made it clear that she respected Weekes, and his standing in the NHL. That’s why her goal was to take Weekes’ report about the Michkov trade request and dig further into it.

However, she was shocked to learn that the Flyers were caught completely offguard by the situation.

“Usually, the subjects of the report already know that’s going to come out. I think what was so shocking to me was calling the Flyers, I had a phone call, a couple of texts, they genuinely were shocked.”

Now, Kaplan did confirm that things aren’t exactly peachy between the Flyers and Michkov’s camp. That’s why it seems that the organization hadn’t realized things had gotten to the point where Michkov wanted out.

But as he adamantly stated, there is no trade request of any kind at this point.

We need to be careful here. We’re not calling Weekes a liar or a part of some conspiracy theory to force the Flyers into trading Michkov.

Nevertheless, the entire situation seems so bizarre when Weekes is the only one among the lot of NHL reporters and insiders who have dug into the situation.

Perhaps Weekes just jumped the gun on the matter. Maybe there was some off-the-record conversation that led to Weekes running with the story BEFORE Michkov’s camp actually talked to the Flyers about it.

Perhaps all he needed to do was give it a day to simmer. But, by jumping the gun, he inadvertently put something out there, and, well, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube now.

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