Nah you're out to lunch.
He's giving it away by blaming US agents and Journalists.
But sure, bring up some middling nobodies that also didn't get ice time in their D+1 to make your point.
Is Buchelnikov a middling nobody? He signed a 3 year deal with SKA and also received little to no ice time. There was no way on gods green earth he wasn't good enough to play on SKA.