Report: Eric Belanger's Agent Considering Legal Action Against Capitals

This Eric Belanger situation continues to get even messier. According to James Mirtle of The Globe And Mail, Belanger's agent, Joe Tacopina, is threatening "legal action" over the way the Capitals have treated his client.

"They should be ashamed of how they handled this situation," Tacopina said of [General Manager George] McPhee and [assistant general manager Don] Fishman.

"We're pursuing and evaluating our legal options in that regard."

According to Tacopina, the Capitals made a commitment over the phone to bring Belanger back to the team on July 16. As previously mentioned, this agreement was pending a trade that was supposed to have been completed that week. But according to Tacopina, that never happened, and it wasn't for another five weeks that Fishman reportedly told Tacopina that they should "move on" if they were "restless." Of course, by then, Belanger's family was entrenched in D.C., and his options had dwindled. 

The Capitals' response to Mirtle's article? Via Sky Kerstein of 106.7 The Fan:

The #Caps response to the James Mirtle article in the Globe and Mail "We never had a contract in place with Eric"    

Tacopina provided Mirtle a copy of a long e-mail he sent to McPhee on August 26. The full text is at the link above, but Belanger apparently even got a copy of the training camp schedule. It was that much of a given then that he was going to be on the roster.

Several player agents told The Globe And Mail that they never would have agreed to the arrangement Belanger's camp initially agreed to with the Capitals.