Do you think, he will sign before july first and becomes a UFA??? and do you believe he will still be in Washington

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Hey Marlou3232, great question.

Washington will have some fringe players to re-sign, but the biggest FA of all of course is Alex Semin. They can replace most of their other UFA's with current players under contract like Johansson, Beagle, Eakin, Holtby, etc, and I'd expect them to sign guys like Laich and Perreault.

Expecting Laich to make roughly $3M and Perreault to make $2-$2.5M give or take (unless he has a Pavelski-like playoffs, which is not at all out of the question) and Knuble to be let go, does give some room for the Caps to offer above the $6M that Semin is currently making. A big question mark is UFA Scott Hannan. Is he worth the $4.5M price tag? I don't think so and I think that is $4.5M that will easily become available in a Semin contract negotiation.

So, back to your question, I think the odds of him re-signing in Washington are about 50/50 before July 1st. Washington will have the cap space to shell out some extra cash, but Semin strikes me as the type of greedy Russian who might want a lot of cash for a long period of time, despite looking at a team's situation and the fact that they really want to have the luxury of throwing Ovechkin out on one shift and Semin out the next.

If Semin makes it to July 1st and is still a free agent, I'd say his chances of signing in Washington drop to 5-10% and that's only because there's a chance he might find out the rest of the NHL won't pay him the # and length he wants...maybe Lou Lamoriello, but let's not open that can of worms. Locking up Semin to a lot of cash for a long period of time would hurt the Caps too because they have the luxury on inexpensive goaltending now...but that won't last forever. They need a cushion to sign a quality goalie in a few years.

He won't be traded because WSH wants him for a playoff run. If he isn't reasonable in his contract discussions, there's a very real chance that a KHL team will throw some monster contracts his way.

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