Alexander Semin has agreed to a one-year contract extension. The deal is worth $6 million, according to a team source. Semin would have been an RFA at season’s end. Now he will be an unrestricted free agent after the 2010-11 campaign.
George McPhee said Semin wanted a one-year deal, and the Caps were OK with it as well. To me, the translation is this: Both sides are ready to continue this engagment for another season, but neither side is ready to say ‘till death do us part yet.
Here’s what both sides had to say on the matter:
“I am just extremely happy to sign here because I like this team,” Semin said through a translator. “I’ve been playing for this team for a very long time and everything here is so native to me now.”
As for McPhee …
“This is a player we’ve drafted and developed and he’s become a very, very good player,” he said. “He can be an even better player. … He’s an exceptional talent and you keep working with these kinds of talents because we don’t get them very often.”
Semin would be the team’s second highest-paid player if next season started tomorrow. Obviously Nicklas Backstrom still needs a contract and he may (likely) fetch more than $6 million.
