Former Capitals center Eric Belanger is one bitter ex-employee after receiving what he sees as shoddy treatment by the organization.
Belanger and his agent, Joseph Tacopina, believe they had an oral agreement July 16 with Washington on a $1.85 million contract. According to Tacopina, the deal was contingent on a trade that general manager George McPhee was working to complete. One problem: It never happened. But by mid-August, when the Caps told Belanger he might want to field other offers, the other teams Tacopina was negotiating with had already moved on. Belanger ended up signing a $750,000 deal with the Phoenix Coyotes on Tuesday.
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The Caps maintain no deal was ever signed. They always have said that, and Tacopina doesn’t dispute it. But in a letter to McPhee, published Wednesday morning by Toronto’s Globe & Mail newspaper, Tacopina says a team employee helped Belanger arrange to move his belongings from Minnesota to Washington and gave advice on signing a lease on a house in the area. That assertion, if true, doesn’t exactly make the organization look good. Forget the legal aspects of this situation. It is likely Belanger will just have to accept the outcome. But will this hurt the Caps in the long run when they negotiate with other players? Perception rules, after all, even if the team believes it did nothing wrong.
