In hindsight yes.
At the time it was very much up for debate whether he would ever be able to come over to NA.
I really don’t agree with this. The only comparable people kept using was the Fedotov situation and that was because he tried to skip out on military service. Plenty of other Russian players were coming over all the time. He was never not coming over. Now if you want to say the three year wait was a factor then I can agree with that. But there was never any real doubt he would not be in the NHL within three years.