Caps winger Alexander Semin has been on short term deals the last few seasons. He signed a two-year contract extension on Oct. 27, 2007, a deal that paid him $4.2 million for the 2008-09 season and $5 million for 2009-10. The salary cap hit for each of those two seasons was $4.6 million.

Semin inked a one-year extension on Dec. 26, 2009, a pact that paid him $6 million for the 2010-11 campaign. He then agreed to another one-year deal on Jan. 27, 2011 that paid him $6.7 million for the just-completed 2011-12 season.

The 28-year-old winger is now set to become an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career this July 1. Traditionally, the Caps don’t discuss contract negotiations nor do they say much (if anything) about their plans or level of interest for impending unrestricted free agents. But Semin’s agent Mark Gandler has already made a good deal of noise about his client not wanting to return to be a “role player” (Semin’s ice time has decreased in each of the last four seasons, from 19:14 in 2008-09 to 16:47 this past season).

Given the past history of contract extensions, I believe if the Caps had interest in the right wing going forward they would have come to terms on a deal already. I’d be extremely surprised if Semin were a member of the 2012-13 Washington Capitals.

Some have wondered how the Caps would replace the 21 goals Semin scored, which were about half of the 40 goals he scored in 2009-10. That’s a fair question, but the answer might be a little more complicated.

Scoring goals is only half of the equation for success in the NHL. The other half is goals against. At this point, it’s worth taking a look at Washington’s recent past history on both sides of this equation.

Season         GF (NHL rank)       GA (NHL rank)     Goal Differential
2005-06        230 (23)            300 (29)           -70
2006-07        234 (17)            275 (26)           -41
2007-08        238 (8)             227 (19)           +11
2008-09        268 (3)             240 (19)           +28
2009-10        313 (1)             227 (16)           +86
2010-11        219 (19)            191 (4)            +28
2011-12        218 (14)            226 (21)            +8

The Caps’ biggest goal differential improvements in the last seven seasons came in 2007-08 (plus-52) and in 2009-10 (plus-58). Their biggest dips were in each of the last two seasons (minus-58 in 2010-11 and minus-26 in 2011-12).

Certainly, the change in the team’s style of play had an impact on its precipitous drop (30%) in goal-scoring from 2009-10 to 2010-11. That drop was tempered somewhat because of the team’s lowest goals against total in franchise history, a figure that was only 11 off the league lead.
Looking just at last season, the team’s goals against total climbed by 35, easily the largest increase at any point in the last seven seasons. Washington went from allowing the fourth fewest goals in the league to being 21st in that department.

Goals for went down by just one, and the team actually moved up the league’s ledger in that category in the process.

Looking at just the last five seasons – the playoff seasons – the Caps have averaged 251 goals scored and 222 goals against.

I would argue that the goals against column is the one where Washington should be looking to make improvements in 2012-13.

In recent NHL seasons, lower goals against totals offer a better indicator of success than do high goals for totals. Of the four teams currently still alive in the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs, three (Los Angeles, New York and Phoenix) finished in the NHL’s top five in goals against during the regular season. The Capitals were 21st in the league in that category in 2011-12.

The 2011 Stanley Cup finalists were Vancouver and Boston, the teams that finished first and second, respectively, in goals against during the 2010-11 season.

Semin has been a fixture among Washington’s top six forwards since the 2006-07 season. Someone would have to take his place in that role and would need to assume his ice time load. That replacement player could be promoted from within or brought in from the outside via a trade or a free agent signing. A great many of the 101 NHL players who scored 20 or more goals last season earned far less than $6.7 million.

Whether or not that replacement player scored 21 goals or more wouldn’t matter as much as how the rest of the team performed. If a handful of players scored a handful more goals next season than they did this season, Semin’s production would be replaced, and his replacement’s production would be gravy.

It is never about one guy. It’s about the team.

Here’s an interesting example. The Philadelphia Flyers’ roster maneuvering from last summer is interesting to examine in the same fashion. The 2009-10 Flyers made a surprising run to the Cup final despite a very ordinary plus-10 goal differential (232-222) that season.

In 2010-11, the Flyers were third in the NHL with 256 goals scored, just two tallies shy of the league lead. Philadelphia had seven 20-goal scorers on its roster at season’s end. The Flyers allowed 216 goals to finish 11th in the league. Their plus-40 goal differential was a significant improvement over the previous season. But management/ownership’s perception was that the team was perhaps too offense-heavy and too goaltending-light.

Flyers’ general manager Paul Holmgren was reportedly given a mandate from ownership: stop the goaltending carousel. Holmgren acquired the negotiating rights to Phoenix netminder Ilya Bryzgalov and moved out top-six centers Mike Richards and Jeff Carter in separate deals with Los Angeles and Columbus, respectively. With all that salary cap space cleared out, Holmgren signed Bryzgalov to a nine-year contract. He changed the face of the entire team, and most figured that Philly would probably score fewer goals but would also allow fewer goals.

Along with Richards (23 goals in 2010-11) and Carter (36), Ville Leino (19) and Nikolai Zherdev (16) weren’t back with the Flyers in 2011-12.

How would Philadelphia replace all that lost goal-scoring? By committee.

Scott Hartnell went from 24 to 37. Claude Giroux went from 25 to 28. Wayne Simmonds, obtained from the Kings in the Richards deal, scored 28, a dozen more than his previous high. Rookie Matt Read had 24, veteran Euro import Jaromir Jagr scored 19. Free agent signee Max Talbot had never scored more than 13 in the NHL, but he potted 19 for the ’11-12 Flyers.

Jakub Voracek came from Columbus and scored 18; his previous high was 16. Rookies Sean Couturier (13) and Brayden Schenn (11) chipped in some offense, and it was more than enough to make up for the drops in the production of Danny Briere (16 goals down from 34 in 2010-11) and James van Riemsdyk (11 goals down from 21).

When it was all said and done, the 2011-12 Flyers actually scored four more goals than they had the previous season, and they tied for second in the league.

Success? Maybe not. Because the idea was to improve the defense/goaltending, and the Flyers allowed nine more goals (225) to go from 11th in the league to 20th in that category. The team’s goal differential in 2010-11 was a plus-40; it dropped to a plus-35 in 2011-12.

The 2012-13 Capitals can’t expect to get 48 goals from three rookie forwards, as the Flyers did. But not re-signing Semin should have far less of an impact than trading Richards and Carter did for the Flyers.

Success in a salary cap environment is all about the wise allocation of dollars. Semin’s 2011-12 salary was seventh highest among all wingers in the NHL. He was nowhere near the top seven in the league in production among wingers, and his goal output has basically been halved over the last two seasons. The Caps will not need to spend anywhere near what the Flyers — or most NHL teams, for that matter — spend on goaltending in 2012-13. They’ll be able to find someone — from within or from the outside — who can skate on the second line and score 20 goals. They likely won’t be able to replace Semin’s talent level, but there are other attributes that can  and do have a positive impact on the goal differential bottom line.

Spending that sort of money on a winger whose production is in decline doesn’t make sense, and I’m fairly confident that Semin’s departure would have more of a positive impact on the team’s salary cap situation than it would have a negative effect on the team’s goal differential for next season.

Semin isn’t the only Capital whose goal production has waned over the last two seasons. But he doesn’t have the protection of a long-term contract, either.

For the Capitals, cutting their goals against total is another way of improving their goal differential for next season. And cutting Semin loose doesn’t have to have as much of an impact on either side of that equation as some believe.

It has been a fairly interesting – in the Chinese fortune cookie sense – last few days in Caps land. So much has happened that is worth noting and discussing that it’s difficult to wrap your head and arms around all of it.

I went to Kettler on Monday morning for breakdown day, only to learn just a few minutes after 11 a.m. that Dale Hunter had stepped down as the team’s coach. Capitals general manager George McPhee announced Hunter’s departure to the assembled media shortly after noon, and then continued speaking on a variety of topics for the better part of half an hour. Then Hunter took to the podium and spoke for several minutes.

After that, a parade of players spoke with virtually all of the Capitals addressing the media at some point. I didn’t get a chance to listen to any of the players speak to the media on Monday; we at Caps365 spent the afternoon ensconced in our studio where we conducted one-on-one exclusive exit interviews with no fewer than 18 players. We’ll roll those out over the days and weeks to come.

I spent a lot of the day decompressing and talking with players and colleagues on camera and off, and there really is so much on my mind that it’s difficult to narrow down what to write about first.

So I’m going to “borrow” an idea from one of my favorite writers.

CBC’s Eliotte Friedman’s “30 Thoughts” is a must-read for myself and for most of us hockey media junkies. Friedman is trusted, well-respected and extremely plugged in, so he gets a great deal of amazing inside information from around the league that he disperses in his column.

That won’t be the case here; just a few Caps-centric items that we’ll expand on further as the summer unfolds, both here and on the weekly Caps Report podcast. Thanks for the inspiration, Eliotte.

1. The Caps didn’t lose their Eastern Conference semifinal series with the New York Rangers in Game 7. They lost it in Game 3 and/or Game 5. A team might be able to get away with one such squandered game in a series, but having two of those games is a death knell, especially beyond the first round. Had the Caps won Game 3 or Game 5, I believe they would have played Game 1 of the ECF against the Devils in New Jersey last night.

2. New York’s best players were better than the Caps’ best players, in Game 7 and in the series. Each team has three players with cap hits above $6 million and the Rangers’ trio of Henrik Lundqvist, Marian Gaborik and Brad Richards trumped the Caps’ threesome of Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin and Nicklas Backstrom.

3. Washington’s secondary players outplayed New York’s secondary players. The Caps’ “foot soldiers” were more of a factor than were New York’s. Jason Chimera (three goals, two assists) was the Capitals’ leading scorer in the series.

4. The Dale Hunter era as a player lasted much longer than the Dale Hunter era as a coach. But I believe the Hunter coaching legacy will have some legs. Some of his imprint will remain on this team. The 2011-12 Caps – especially at season’s end – were more of a team than a group of individuals, compared to previous editions.

5. I believe the Capitals are a better team now than they were in October. Here’s why: Braden Holtby. Dmitry Orlov. Jay Beagle. Matt Hendricks. Mathieu Perreault.

6. George McPhee will be thorough in his search for the Caps’ next coach. Each of the last four Caps coaches was a first-time NHL head coach. That might not be the case this time around. If I were doing the interviewing, among those at the top of my list would be Terry Murray and Mike Sullivan.

7. It’s hard for a defenseman to stay healthy enough to play in all 82 regular season games. Kudos to Karl Alzner, John Carlson and Dennis Wideman. All three achieved the feat this season and all three played in all 14 playoff games to boot. For Alzner and Carlson, that’s two straight seasons of playing in all 82 games.

8. Washington’s list of unrestricted free agents: Keith Aucoin, Jeff Halpern, Mike Knuble, Dany Sabourin, Alexander Semin, Tomas Vokoun, Dennis Wideman. It’s very possible the Caps would retain none of them, but Sabourin might be the most likely of the seven to return, and might make the most sense.

9. If Holtby and Michal Neuvirth are the Caps’ two netminders next season, they’ll come at a combined salary cap hit of less than $1.8 million, not including whatever entry level bonuses Holtby might earn.

10. Those who claim Washington’s window to win is getting narrower are alarmists. The core players on this team are just getting into their prime years. The window is still open.

11. Orlov is going to be a very good defenseman in the NHL. I like his game and his demeanor, and love that he plays with jam at both ends of the rink.

12. Holtby might be the most mature 22-year-old I’ve ever encountered. His mental fortitude and competitiveness complement his physical gifts well. As was the case with Olie Kolzig before him, his teammates love playing in front of Holtby.

13. The Caps have a locker room teeming with good interviews and players who are more than willing to respond to thought-provoking questions with reasoned and honest replies. One of the national scribes covering the Caps-Rangers series remarked to me mid-series on how much more media-friendly the Washington staff and room were than those of the Rangers.

14. If Mike Knuble isn’t wearing a Caps’ sweater in the fall, I hope someone else of his level of character and leadership is. That’s a short list of players we’re talking about. Furthermore, if he’s not back in Washington I hope he’s playing somewhere and thriving. I’d like to see him go out on his terms.

15. The Backstrom suspension in the Boston series is what got Knuble back into the lineup. More than one player cited to me that they believed Knuble’s insertion into the lineup was a key to the Caps winning that series.

16. Hendricks, Beagle and Keith Aucoin all showed that sometimes it’s beneficial to be seen with a fresh set of eyes. A new coach could have the same effect on some other players this fall. That knife cuts both ways, too; a new coach’s eyes can also spell less ice time and a diminished role for some players.

17. There are those who argue that a first-round draft choice was a high price for winger Troy Brouwer. I’d make that deal again. He is a winner, on and off the ice.

18. Thinking somewhat along the lines of the Brouwer deal, I wonder whether the Caps might be able to swap the No. 16 overall pick in the 2012 draft for a top six forward to replace Semin.

19. Backstrom’s injury had an adverse effect on Marcus Johansson. I think Johansson is a better player when Backstrom is in the lineup. Johansson was timid in his second tour through the playoffs, while Backstrom had his coming-out party in his second tour through. I still remember noting how tough it had become to knock Backstrom off the puck in that first-round series with New York in 2009. Johansson needs to add that trait to his toolkit for 2012-13.

20. Joel Ward is as stand-up and honest as they come. I’d like to see him benefit from the coaching change. He’s a guy who can be effective – and productive – parked in front of the net on the power play.

21. I don’t believe Semin will be able to command the salary he was paid ($6.7 million) for last season in the NHL in 2012-13. He is as talented as any player in the league, and other clubs will have interest in him.

22. I’m anxious to see Backstrom healthy from the start of the season onward next season. When he is at his best, he is one of the top all-around players in the league.

23. Washington could ice a lineup next season that includes five home-grown defensemen: Alzner, Carlson, Green, Schultz and Orlov. I don’t think there are any other NHL teams that can make that claim.

24. I hope the Caps’ search for their next head coach doesn’t leave the assistants twisting in the breeze. Dean Evason and Blaine Forsythe are two of my favorite people, and Jim Johnson has always been helpful and forthcoming in the short time he has been here. They’re good men.

25. I believe the presence of former defensemen Bob Woods and then Johnson on the coaching staff has been a plus these last few years. If Johnson doesn’t return, I hope there will be a former defenseman on staff. Those home-grown blueliners I referenced earlier are still on the youthful side.

26. Tomas Vokoun is a classy professional. It was a pleasure having him around for a year. I could see him landing in Tampa Bay about a month and a half from now.

27. It was great seeing Kolzig around the team more frequently this season. With him and Dave Prior around, the Caps’ stable of young netminders are in good and capable hands.

28. Caps fans should be proud of the way several players came back from long exiles as healthy scratches. John Erskine, Mathieu Perreault, Knuble, Hamrlik, Beagle, Schultz and Halpern all acquitted themselves well during and after their extended stretches in healthy scratch prison. I’ve never been an advocate of scratching any one player for weeks at a time. I think it’s more conducive to avoiding rust and boosting morale to make sure no one sits out too long.

29. I still believe that Ovechkin has some 40-goal seasons – and maybe a season or two of 50 – in him under the right conditions. By “right conditions” I mean the right linemates, system and usage.

30. Competition for college free agents becomes more frenzied every year. The Caps did well to sign Cameron Schilling. I’m hearing good things about his pro baptism in Hershey and I’m looking forward to seeing him develop here.