there's no IF. they clearly would have known about him, what they say to the media is one thing as it's well known the Habs have the worst media/fan base in the NHL as they are f***ing nuts.
I think Michkov is overrated plain and simple, I don't think he will be much better then Caufield in the NHL. So we'll see who is the right at scouting or not. Keep in mind I don't care about scouting, I watched Michkov at 15 because he was on the team of a guy I wanted to watch. I wasn't there to focus on him. I cover the Hab prospects for different websites over the years so my focus is always on that.
But I have been doing this since the late '90's. I actually had VHS tapes that I would exchange with a girl in Moscow way back in the day that she told me the tapes I sent her of Habs games were likely taken by the KGB (this was early '00's) I got to see AO at 17, Andrei Kostitsyn at 18 in the old RSL (he looked terrible)