Various reports have surfaced over the past week suggesting that the Washington Capitals are attempting to move high-scoring winger Alexander Semin in order to free-up salary-cap space to re-sign defenseman Karl Alzner.
The Calgary Flames, New York Islanders and Los Angeles Kings are all rumored to have interest in the former 40-goal scorer; and according to this link courtesy of FoxSports, he might be an option for the Rangers as a top-line left-winger.
Semin, 27, scored 28 goals and 26 assists in 65 regular season games, along with four goals and two assists in nine post-season games.
The Russian winger was the Capitals third-best scorer this past season, and his quick hands and wrist-shot make him an elite goal-scorer. He is also very useful on the power-play.
The same link mentioned above speculates that the Rangers may be willing to move some of their defensive prospects, as they have a plethora of young, talented blueliners in their system. The report suggests that Pavel Valentenko, Jyri Niemi and possibly Mikhail Pashnin could be used as trade bait.
While Semin would be a very, very good acquisition for the Rangers top-line, he is extremely inconsistent and he would likely fail under Coach John Tortorella's system. Plus, GM Glen Sather has already mentioned that he will not overpay to acquire a top-line winger to complete Brad Richards and Marian Gaborik's line, and Semin carries a cap-hit of $6.7million.
The Rangers will more than likely keep what they have, and finish the off-season by re-signing forwards Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky and Brian Boyle, and possibly add a defenseman for the bottom pairing.
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