I'm not saying he wouldn't be an asset, but you would really give up Nelson and a 1st for a guy who has never played in the NHL? That's crazy, no matter how good he was in the KHL. Guys like him can so easily flop, it's not the worth the risk of giving up major assets.
Maybe it's a stretch . . . maybe make the trade bigger and target a defenseman too.
I think back to the 1979-80 team and how we got so tied in to the current home grown talent on that team and how it took a trade to bring in someone from outside the organization to push them into the top tier and I'm sure if that trade was completed today we'd be bemoaning that Goring cost us Harris (a #1 overall pick) and Lewis (a Top 4 defenseman). Harris was a 60-70 point producer for the previous 4 seasons and Lewis was Potvin's partner on the blueline. How does that trade get handled if HF is around back then? Probably gets trashed at least at the beginning.
The lesson that Torrey and Arbour learned after that first cup was that you made a roster change or two EVERY YEAR, which they did. Now granted there was plenty of talent waiting to come up but we think that's true today also with our prospects. What you didn't have back then was a lot of long term contracts and that kept the players more consistently hungry to perform.
I think that this group of players has something missing and it isn't easily apparent (I'm talking chemistry, not the tactical stuff of a lack of a PP QB or an established #2C) to notice, but you get the feeling this team has BOTH a floor AND a ceiling and that spells complacency. When Goring came to the Island the first thing he did inside the locker room was to get the players to understand that the rest of the league seemed to have a higher regard for them as a team than they did among themselves.
This team clearly has 2 needs, as the other thread noted. I think this guy can clearly fill the 2C role, others don't think so. I happen to like Russian forwards like this guy because they are solid two-way players because that's how the Russians train their centers. Not saying he's Datsyuk or Federov but how many North American centers are those two guys either when it came to their overall effect on a game? The KHL is the second best league in the world and you can't ignore his accomplishments there. McPhee never got over the hump with the Capitols but knew Russian talent there. This is his only big FA signing and he's playing around with the guy.
Find a way to take advantage.