I normally agree with a lot of your posts but seems to me you’re reaching on this one in what looks like an attempt at all costs to justify not taking Michkov.
What if Michkov’s not a head case? Kid lost his father in mysterious circumstances not long ago — does he get any consideration for what that can do to a young man’s life?
This whole Bobrov would know thing can only go so far. Habs have their sources but what if the Flyers had actionable intel of their own, that the Habs missed out on?
You’re bringing up random reports questioning his mental makeup when you know all too well that none of them have come from reliable and authoritative sources.
Sure, don’t give Brière the benefit of the doubt. Has Bobrov done anything to earn your trust? I’m personally on the fence about him and his Rangers record is spotty at best. He’s shown himself to be a very invasive kind of guy, who likes to swing above his station. Remember how he was a European scout but when we saw behind the screen footage of Ranger war rooms, he took over? How well did his decisions go?
This is the guy you want to place your trust in over Brière? Bobrov looks like a slick snake oil salesman — lots of sizzle and little steak.
Amateur hour with the leaks? Brière was just named GM at the most critical juncture, is it not possible that mistakes were made? That he doesn’t have all of his personnel in place?
As much as he made mistakes, he did use the media to try and get the Habs off the scent. He also convinced Michkov and his family to spend time with him in Philly, where he got way more direct contact with the young man than Hughes did. Did the Habs go the extra mile like that, when everyone had said that access to him had been difficult in Russia? Should Hughes not have invested more one on one time given how many claimed that Michkov’s talent was close to Bedard’s?
Then you go and throw in a completely irrelevant incident involving Briere’s son. Did Brière have anything to do with it? If you have kids, you should know that they may be prone to irresponsible acts. Does that make you a bad father? Does it impair Briere’s judgment as a GM? What the hell are you doing twisting a sorry incident like that to bash Brière? FWIW, excuses were presented and Brière did what any father would have done. His son learned a big lesson. Why bring this up? To make Reinbacher look better? Sheesh!
Do you have some kind of score to settle with Brière? You scraped the bottom of the barrel by bringing up the torch ceremony when he was a Hab. How do you know that he has anything to do with the role he played in it? How do you know that he was behind Lafleur handing him the torch? More important, how does a ceremonial act from many years ago, impact Briere’s capabilities as a GM? Completely ludicrous.
As for Brière passing up the Habs for a contract when in his prime, it’s been reported that he really wanted to come over but had a difficult decision on account of his wife being an American and not wanting to move.
Still feel like appealing to this management team’s authority after the way they handled the draft and the contradictory rationales they provided after the draft? How did you like Hughes telling us that Orville couldn’t run a 1st wave PP? That he did not project as a 1D? That they drafted by need with a 5th OA pick and may not have picked the BPA in a forward heavy draft? This was not “amateur hour” to you but Brière who nabbed Michkov without having to pay extra for the privilege, was an amateur?
You must love “culture” cause your good buddies Lapointe and Bobrov were serving it by the buckets and making it a dominating aspect of their drafting approach. What happened to emphasizing talent first and foremost? Culture edging out elite scoring talent, is that a winning recipe to you?
As for the scouting reports about Michkov’s alleged deficiencies that you read — did you have access to the Habs’ or the Flyers’ due diligence? Do you realize how limiting and limitative that kind of source is? Where are the multiple live viewings supporting those reports? Were you briefed on the analytics? Did you have scouting meetings? You’re going to trust random “reports” for a player from a country engaged in war that the professionals had trouble getting access to? Let me guess, you did all this from your couch using a laptop.
Clearly, the Flyers don’t believe that Michkov has “stagnated”. I think I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt over a fan piecing together the most absurd and disjointed of assumptions and claims from his living room.
I normally don’t answer posts with so much detail but my goodness, I couldn’t believe how far you went just to support a fantastical theory.
Talk to me once Michkov has performed in the NHL. We’ll see then if Brière was such a numbskull.
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