With the Capitals signing players like Tom Poti and Michel Neuvirth to multi-year extensions, Alex Semin‘s future with the team still remains in doubt. Some people think the Caps should lock up the legitimate first-line scoring-threat long term, while others believe his trade value will never be higher than it is right now. Whatever side of the fence you’re on, one thing is certain: This year could not be more important to the young Russian winger.

Sasha potted a career high 40 goals last season and many are wondering if he can do it again in a contract year. From the time period of the lockout to 2008-9 there has been 39 40-goal seasons. This table shows how they did in the year after they scored 40 goals:

As a group they had an inferior season the following year. In fact, out of the 39 campaigns only three increased their total (Ovechkin +19 in 2008, Kovalchuk +10 in 2008 and Selanne +8 in 2007) plus Heatley, who was able to put together consecutive 50-goal seasons in 2006 and 2007.

The other 35 players tallied 13 less goals on average the following year.

In addition, players in the Top 20 in scoring should be expected to do significantly worse in their next season. Semin’s 84 points rank him as 13th in the NHL.

It certaintly looks like Alex Semin’s trade value this season will never be higher than it is right now – and along with Tomas Fleischmann who some think will score 65 points this year – we think you should take the under.