Semin the Cat

Damien Cox:

Semin looked like a hero in Game 4 for setting up Ovechkin for a key third-period score, but replays suggested he more or less simply lost the puck, rather than passed it.

While a countryman, here’s guessing Semin drives Ovechkin nuts, too. He was no help at all at the recent Vancouver Olympics, vanishing along with Ilya Kovalchuk and Evgeny Malkin in the quarter-final hit, but it was Ovechkin who took the brunt of the Russian criticism.

What Semin thinks about any of this is unknown. He either doesn’t speak English or prefers not to try, and both amount to the same thing. Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green are left to explain the triumphs and defeats, while Semin plays his game and takes his paycheque and excuses himself from pretty much everything else.

He is the anti-Ovechkin, a star making no impression on the larger D.C. hockey and sports landscape. Like Colonel Flagg of M*A*S*H* television fame, Semin is the wind, but without the good punchlines.

While GM George McPhee works on a long-term deal for Backstrom, he probably wonders how much longer he needs to keep Semin around. He’s got a good young Swede coming, forward Marcus Johansson, and as the market for Kessel and Kovalchuk demonstrated this season, there’s undoubtedly a rich harvest to be had if the Caps were to move Semin.

Right now, they’re hoping the Russian Riddler demonstrates his talent in Game 6 against the Canadiens on Monday night.

And he is also a huge reason why Ovechkin and team Russia won the World Championship in Quebec.
Does the Tomcat understand when he is taking others down? Yes, and yes one more time. In one of the Russian interviews he said that he was totally upset how he had played at the Olympics. He calls Ovechkin a brother and he is serious about it, but he couldn't help Ovi and Caps in these series. You can't put a cat on a leash, you can't.



strymeek — October 21, 2009 — Bought our pet Meep a harness. He's generally pretty active but the moment we put a harness on him, he lies on floor refusing to move.





Hopefully Semin will wake up and help Caps in playoffs run. I am pretty sure he is hoping for that too.


Update: The state of Semin's English is open to debate.

By Barry Svrluga, Washington Post, Apr. 26, 2010:

The job as Semin's spokesman falls largely to Ovechkin, his Russian compatriot and closest friend on the Capitals. During practice, after Semin knelt in front of Boudreau as the coach dictated instructions to the entire team, Ovechkin leaned in and spoke to his buddy -- who he calls, almost exclusively, by his nickname "Sasha" -- to make sure Semin understood. The state of Semin's English is open to debate. "He can speak it," Ovechkin said last year, "when he wants to." In any case, he rarely addresses reporters in anything but Russian.

"I think mentally it's a good thing he doesn't speak English," Ovechkin said Sunday, smiling. "He can't listen to [the media]. But I think mentally, the most important thing is [that his] teammates help him a lot. He's trying, and I think last game he played very well. He played pretty hard, made some hits, shoot the puck."

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