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| Alex Semin's netted 30 points in 30 games, but does that mean he's worth an average of $7 million a year? (Credits: Chris Seward/News Observer) |
When it comes to Russian superstars in the NHL, a breed that over the years has earned a reputation in the League as talented but apathetic, there is one word that sticks to them like the puck to their blades: enigmatic. They disappear from games as quickly and suddenly as they appear, floating through one shift before surging through the next. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, as Alexander Mogilny proved to us once and Pavel Datsyuk proves to us now, but there are also epitomizations of it. Alexander Semin falls in the latter category.
Yesterday, the Carolina Hurricanes signed Semin to a 5-year, $35 million extension, keeping him in Raleigh through 2018. I’m not a mathematician, but that looks to me like $7 million a year, more than the 2012-13 annual salaries earned by the Sedin twins, Ryan Getzlaf, Thomas Vanek, Anze Kopitar and the aforementioned Datsyuk. In terms of 2012-13 cap hit, Semin’s comparables include Steven Stamkos, Patrick Kane, Jason Spezza and his countryman Ilya Kovalchuk.
Semin is an undeniable offensive talent, but he is not in the same tier as the men just mentioned. Those guys are first-rate NHL stars, the type of players whom you build franchises around, who are dependable night in and night out. Semin, on the other hand, is the type of player who supplements your big guns, who provides the second round of artillery after the main weaponry has gone to work.
In Washington, where he played Robin to Ovechkin’s Batman, he was paid accordingly, his contracts ranging in annual value from $4.2 million to $6.7 million (excluding his entry-level deal). But more to the point is the conservative length of Washington’s commitments to Semin, never once offering the Russian dynamo more than a two-year deal. The caution of the Front Office is reflective of Semin’s fickle nature as a player, who some nights in Washington wore the Capitals red like the Russian national jersey and other nights like a practice penny.
As Semin’s ex-teammate Troy Brouwer explained a few weeks ago, in what was a mix of pre-game trash talk and purgative release, “Some nights you didn’t even know if he was going to come to the rink. It’s tough to play alongside guys like those because you don’t know what youre going to get out of ‘em.”
Another former teammate, Matt Bradley, once said that Semin “could easily be the best player in the league, and just for whatever reason, just doesn’t care.”
Keep in mind, these criticisms come from heart-and-soul guys who know a thing or two about “taking one for the team.” Through their own displays of toughness and self-sacrifice, they have earned the right to question a guy’s commitment to the cause. (Give a Brouwer or a Bradley the skill-set of a Semin, and you’re looking at a Hall of Fame player.)
The Hurricanes came to Semin’s defense in response to Brouwer’s comments, noting that he has demonstrated consistent play and a high work ethic in his first season with the team. Fair enough. But until yesterday, Semin was playing with the motivation of a soon-to-be free agent, looking for a long-term deal. His impulse for playing a team-game may have been to help the collective group or it may have been to boost his own value. We’ll never know, but Semin’s track record in Washington as a locker-room cancer suggests his incentive is mainly personal. And remember, his best season with the Caps – and his only 40-goal season in his 8-year career – came in 2009-10 with free agency looming.
He was 25 years old that season, a star seemingly on the rise, with 100-point campaigns beckoning in his future. He was entering his prime and mastering the North American style of play, his roaring engines counting down to take-off, his career on its launch pad. But the ensuing season, as if not so sure of himself anymore, Semin sputtered, stumbling to a 54-point season, which he repeated last year. After averaging a point-per-game pace of 1.2 from 2008-2010, Semin fell precipitously to a pace of .75 from 2010-2012. Through those years, one pattern, however, remained constant: Semin’s inability to stay healthy. He averaged less than 70 games played through the aforementioned 4 seasons, and has not played more than 77 games in a season in his entire career.
This year, Semin has certainly reversed these trends. He has returned to a point-per-game pace and played in each one of Carolina’s 30 games to date. He has excelled on a line with center Eric Staal, aiding the Hurricanes’ captain in a modest resurgence of his own.
But this doesn’t justify a relatively massive 5-year extension, not after two mediocre seasons in Washington signaling a decline. While the Hurricanes’ acquisition of Semin this summer makes them look shrewd, their commitment yesterday makes them look love-drunk. This team was so uncertain about Semin in July they handed him an experimental one-year contract, an expression of trust that amounts to letting your dog outside to run free with a 10-foot barbwire fence enclosing the yard. Now, just 6 months later, they’re ready to tear down the fence, throw out the leashes and tear off the collar, on the merits of a strong (read: not spectacular) start to the season.
By paying Semin top-dollar, the Hurricanes are not handing him the title of franchise player, but they areasking him to play like one, to march in line with the Sedins and Stamkoses and Kanes of the League and maintain the beat. And asking him to do that feels very much like drunkenly asking your drunken friend to wake you up early tomorrow. Chances are he’ll promise to do it and chances are you’ll believe him, because just about anything seems possible after a few Jack-and-Rums (just go with it.) But when you wake up at 11:00 and your friend is still passed out, you realize the mistake you’ve made. It’s not his fault for failing to do it, but yours for asking. And expecting.
So if Semin responds to this extension with the type of lackadaisical, erratic play that characterized his last two years with the Capitals, the Hurricanes can’t be upset with him. If you ask a player to be the best he can be, he’s going to promise to oblige. But they can be upset with themselves, for falling in whimsical love with a player and proposing with a diamond ring. For letting 30 games of consistency obscure 450+ games of inconsistency. For forgetting that when it comes to Russian superstars, enigmatic is the word.
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