Look at the timeline. Habs under MB have several Russian players either through draft, trade or UFA. Habs rumored to be interested in Shipachyov early last year (pre CJ). CJ comes in and the Habs go out and acquire King, Ott, Martinsen. Off-season every Russian player but Scherbak is gone (unless you count Galchenyuk as Russian, but his value was likely too low to trade in the summer imo) Now they have no interest in Shipachyov. Funny that pre CJ we had lots of Russians and interest in others and now under CJ we have hardly any. So was it MB that soured on them or does CJ have some issue and why? Just seems very odd that just about all of our Russian players are gone and we don't have interest in a player we were rumored to be interested in signing.
http://www.tsn.ca/agent-blames-julien-for-less-russians-on-habs-galchenyuk-s-struggles-1.896907
Seems you aren't the only one with this theory...