Matvei Michkov's loan to HK Sochi was questionable at first. 

It's not that Michkov wasn't ready to play in the KHL, quite the opposite. Sochi just so happened to be the worst team in the league by a wide margin. 

At the time of writing this, they've only managed six regulation wins in 61 games. The next-worst team has 15. They've been outscored by a laughable margin of 106 goals, while the next-worst mark is 55. 

Michkov's play in the VHL before the move had raised some red flags, too. He was scoring at a high clip, having added 10 goals in 12 games, but he was also very inefficient with his touches, didn't create many scoring chances via playmaking and displayed an overall uninspiring work rate.

Contrary to the early skepticism, the move to Sochi has turned out to be exactly what Michkov nee