Hurricanes owner on Alex Semin: 'We bought him out because he was a distraction'
Peter Karmanos Jr. had plenty to say about Alexander Semin after signing off on buying out his contract Wednesday.
The Carolina Hurricanes owner, who approved a five-year, $35-million contract for the forward back in 2013, made no bones about why he and general manager Ron Francis decided to let go of Semin.
Put simply, Semin doesn't appear to have been the kind of person the Hurricanes wanted around, Karmanos Jr. told Chip Alexander of the Raleigh News & Observer:
There are some guys you pay millions and millions of dollars and it wouldn't affect their performance at all. There are some guys you pay millions and millions of dollars and it takes away all their incentive. You need to be very careful and understand the character of the person you're signing. We obviously missed that.
We didn't buy him out to save cap space or anything like that. We bought him out because he was a distraction, he wasn't going to perform and we wanted to get on to building a team that could win.
Semin will now earn $2.3 million per year from Karmanos Jr. through to the end of the 2020-21 season for not playing with the Hurricanes, and is free to sign with any of the other 29 teams around the league.
He shouldn't, however, expect a warm welcome when he returns to Carolina.
In 166 games with the Hurricanes, Semin scored 41 goals and added 64 assists.