It's not a 'me' problem because I'm not agreeing with their position in totality, just explaining what was coming down from people close to the Habs organization and what other credible people around the league were saying that they were hearing.
There's also a big faction of hockey fans who have convinced themselves Michkov is a generational talent that is wrongly personified and wrongly evaluated but seem to agree that it was okay to pass on a generational talent for Leo Carlsson, Adam Fantilli, and even more egregiously Will Smith and Dmitri Simashev.
My take is people think Michkov progressed at the same level that Bedard did, see himself in the same breath still and think it was just one boogeyman that kept 5 separate organizations from taking the guy who is neck and neck with Bedard instead of actually understanding that what NHL scouts think and were saying may actually undercut that and show that while Michkov is still a highly regarded offensive player there are other elements to consider.
If there were no risks, no hockey factors and he was truly still seen as that, there's no way in hell you could justify the Sharks passing on him. Not one. You probably couldn't even justify the Ducks passing on him at 2.. but yet we do, because people just accepted that since Bob's list had those players ahead for awhile that it was acceptable to do so.
So either the risks around Michkov's profile are actually legitimate, or this draft had 4 generational talents at the top and two other organizations who just fumbled it, and there was actually 5 generational talents.
The Habs and some of their scouts like Demidov and may pick him if he's there, so it is clear the Russia stuff bothered them less than they let on and they have more time for Demidov as a prospect. Time will tell if that's the correct opinion.
Well, I think that the Michkov situation is layered. It’s the contract, a general Russian factor where teams are scared of being able to sign players away from SKA (and CSKA), a war, and then now we had a new element appear in the month before the draft where Michkov did the nearly unprecedented and was making clear to teams at the top he will or won’t play for them.
And look, it may simply be a situation where Michkov said he didn’t want to play in Canada or in French-Canada. If so, the Habs might be downplaying Michkov for the same types of reasons we know the Coyotes are downplaying why they didn’t take him.
When you add all of that up, that’s a lot of variables to consider. Sure, you can easily spin them as mostly minor variables that will easily be overshadowed by his play on the ice, but NHL GM’s are naturally very risk averse. They always pick big and fast and physical players higher than most think their talent level is. They prefer the safe over the risky.
I think the lack of actual questions about Michkov’s hockey says a lot. When people have to look to all this stuff outside of hockey, fair or not, the lack of negative discussion about his hockey doesn’t tend to illuminate on the idea that Carlsson, Fantilli, Smith, and Reinbacher went ahead of him because they are better at hockey.
As a neutral, I see a bunch of teams, including the Habs, that are trying to muddy the waters about Michkov because they know that this is at best a polarizing topic for their franchise and at worst not favorable to them. For all we know, Molson vetoed drafting Michkov. Would they ever reveal that? Likely not. Yes, it’s unlikely and only hypothetical, but it seems to be playing intentionally ignorant to suggest Michkov was really the 7th best player in this draft. If anyone wants to say so, let’s hear it. The arguments on this topic don’t tend to ever go too far down the road because it’s a very tough argument to make. I don’t think it’s conspiratorial to suggest it was something else, whether one thing or many, not related to his pure hockey ability why he went 7th and each team passed on him.
As for Demidov, let’s see what happens in the next year. Yeah, they like the player. So does anyone with a brain. Again, I’m not sure that saying you like a 1OA contender says that much, especially considering it may be in the context of how he compared to Michkov and the Habs potentially having a narrative to spin about Michkov.
