Washington Capitals: Alex Semin to Be a Free Agent

And the hits keep coming for the Washington Capitals.

A Game 7 loss to the New York Rangers on Saturday night.

Then Dale Hunter resigns as head coach.

And now the hat trick—ESPN's Craig Custance is reporting Alex Semin has no plans on signing a contract extension and will be an unrestricted free agent as of July 1, 2012.

In reality, this is not that surprising. Most people in or around the Caps organization were expecting Semin to leave the team.

What is a bit more surprising are some of the reasons that Semin's agent, Mark Gandler, has given for one of the core players for the Caps leaving for greener pastures this coming season—with "green" probably being the operative word.

I found this quote from Gandler, as reported by Custance, somewhat eyebrow raising: "It was good while it lasted. With the lack of playoff success, with the direction they are going. They decided to change directions. That's within their rights. Alex doesn't fit into that system obviously."

Excuse me? Lack of playoff success? Mark, you might want to look right at your client as one of the big reasons for the Caps' lack of playoff success.

Now I will be the first to acknowledge that Semin played much better during the Caps 2012 playoff run then he ever had previously.

Still, he failed to score a goal against the Rangers and the Caps needed all the goal-scorers they could find in that series.

Another interesting aspect of Custance's article was Gandler's statement as to how Semin apparently wanted an increased role, particularly on the penalty kill:

"

I think the issue is with the organization, not necessarily with the coach. They told us Alex is not going to play short-handed, he's not going to play in the last minute. He's going to get the same ice time as everybody else ... Alex is not ready to be a role player. He wants to be a full-time player. It's important to him.

"

The line between being a team player and being quite selfish is very thin, isn't it?

Again, don't get me wrong—Semin is a great talent, immensely skilled and one of the most dangerous forwards in the NHL. However, his biggest problem for the Caps was his tendency to disappear when the stakes were at their highest. And this happened during the playoffs far too often.

Most Caps fans will, like me, have mixed feelings about Semin leaving.

On the one hand, there is a sense of loss as one of the so-called "core four" for the Caps (Semin, Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green) will be leaving, signifying a true end to an era.

On the other hand, there will also be a sense of opportunity and a feeling that the team is truly going to move forward and in a new direction. It's just too bad the Caps could not have traded Semin so they could have gotten something back in exchange.

Hopefully, the Caps like Bob Dylan because the theme song for the summer will be "The Times They Are a-Changin."