If you were trolling around the #Caps Twittersphere today, you probably saw our friend J.P. at Japer’s Rink send out a message about former Cap Shaone Morrisonn about his views of Alexander Semin. The person who put out the original tweet is Jeremy White, a radio personality from 550AM in Buffalo, NY, who interviewed Morrisonn a short time ago. If you missed it, the tweet is just below.
@JeremyWGR Jeremy White
RT by JapersRink
talked w/Shaone Morrison 2 wks ago…echoed EVERYTHING said on A. Semin. Says he’s more talented than Ovie but doesn’t care/try. Never will.
There was also more to this than I saw but taken down. Another tweet had stated that they used to take bets in December to see when Semin would pretend to be injured, or when he would lay down on the ice during practice.
Most of us by now are sick of hearing the “Semin doesn’t care” banter, including me. However, there must be some sort of substance to this. As I said to someone on Twitter earlier: If it’s just one ex-player you can chalk it up to being disgruntled and let it go, but two ex-players you have to start thinking about it seriously and take this as a possible legitimate issue.
I will also buy into the fact that Semin is probably just a timid guy who just keeps to himself. The fact that he’s starting to do interviews more frequently – in English – is definitely helping his cause. However, as much as I like Semin, this cannot go ignored. He must be put under the microscope and scrutinized heavily this season. This is not the season to slack off, nor is this the season to disappear. If he plays hard day in and day out, doesn’t slack off, and produces like he’s supposed to, then by all means keep him on the team and resign him this offseason. If he shows in any way that the comments from Matt Bradley and Morrisonn are true, then George McPhee must do the right thing, and if that means trading him by the deadline, then so be it.
