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Just Who Is That Masked Man?
"He's a bit of an enigma," Capitals goaltender Olie Kolzig said of winger Alexander Semin, above. "We know he's a talented kid. But not much else."
(Toni L. Sandys - The Washington Post)
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Semin's stock began to rise in the eyes of NHL talent evaluators. And when Semin's name was still on the board at No. 13 during the 2002 entry draft, the Capitals wasted no time selecting him.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]In September 2003, Semin arrived in Odenton, thousands of miles from his home town, for his first NHL training camp. Language and cultural barriers made the distance seem even farther.
As a rookie, he appeared in 52 games, amassing 10 goals and 12 assists. But on the last day of the regular season, Semin missed the team flight to Pittsburgh. He never made it to the game.
A week later, the Capitals sent him to Portland, Maine, then home of their top minor league affiliate, for the start of the American Hockey League playoffs.
"It was very tough," he said. "It was my first year in a foreign country. In Portland, it was even more difficult because no one spoke Russian. The language problem was very hard to overcome."
Then he smiled and said, "It was hard, but I didn't die."
During the NHL lockout that erased the next season, the Capitals wanted Semin to return to Portland to get some seasoning.
But Semin never showed up. Instead, he remained in his homeland, where he resumed playing for Lada Togliatti and earned significantly more than he would have in the AHL.
The Capitals were willing to put the episode behind them. But when Semin failed to arrive for training camp in September 2005 after initially telling club officials that he planned to return to Washington, the team sued him and his agent in U.S. District Court, alleging breach of contract.
So instead of building on his fine rookie campaign, he spent the 2005-06 season playing in Russia. The Capitals, meantime, traded for veteran Jeff Friesen to replace him. Friesen, though, wound up scoring three goals in an injury-plagued season, and the Capitals finished in last place in the Southeast Division for the second straight season.
Semin and his agent claimed he wasn't permitted to leave Russia because of military obligations, and the lawsuit later was thrown out of court. A judge ruled that the court did not have jurisdiction because he was serving in the military.
When pressed for his side of the story, Semin said: "There were people who didn't want me to leave. Right now, I want to put this in the past. I don't want to talk about who, when, why. It's in the past. I want to move forward."
