Idk about that. I think alot of that noise is nothing more than rumors to justify the Reinbacher pick. Even in the Habs draft video last year, you could see the team talking about potentially passing on a certain someone (cough cough Michkov). It seems like Michkov was always on the table but Habs decided to go with Reinbacher for their own reasons.
The only team I believe Michkov turned down was the Coyotes. I don't believe for a second he said No to MTL. Maybe he preferred PHI more, maybe??? That's hard to say for sure tho
Gorton wanted to make sure, but of course he was on the table for every team, but when you are picking top 7 and the prospect you are thinking about selecting is giving you the run around, and has the power to stay in Russia and leverage that into what they want, that does enter the equation.
What we do know is that Friedman confirmed that Michkov and his agent played the process to get to Philly as best they could.
We know that Michkov was seen as potentially the best talent in the draft outside of Bedard, yet he went all the way to Philly at 7.
We can reasonably give the edge to Carlsson and Fantilli as centers with size over Michkov. But then San Jose took Smith over Michkov. Montreal took Reinbacher. Arizona took Simashev.
We know Philly wanted 5 to get Reinbacher, so clearly felt they could get Michkov at 7 or that they valued Reinbacher higher.
We know Nashville tried to get up to 5 to take Reinbacher.
We know the noise entering the draft were teams trying to get 5 to take Reinbacher and not move up to get Michkov.
Michkov met with Philly twice, including a secretive meeting with the top parts of the organization there and he didn't do that with any other team.
The math maths here and Michkov got what he wanted. If you are to bash the Habs for making that decision, you have to also apply that same logic to the San Jose Sharks. Let's be real, in no universe, one for one, without anything else going on, that a team would take Smith over Michkov, right?