Chris18 wrote:
I disagree. If your best leader isn't one of your best players, that's fine to me. Okposo has been a good leader since he arrived in the NHL.
I've coached and been on teams where the best players are shitty leaders, and contribute to talking shit about their own teammates. It destroys the team from within and they never advance or grow as a team. I've coached, been on teams (and worn the A
) where the best leaders are shitty players (including me) and lead everyone, including the best players, to championships. Do what you're best at. Your 1C isn't automatically your C. Sometimes they're dicks or just not leaders at all.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they should hand it to a bunch of snot-nosed punks, but it's clear the de facto captain there now is Alex Tuch. The rest of the guys there are not fresh-faced rookies either. Power is obviously still quite young, but the other members of that core, like Tuch, Skinner, Thompson, Dahlin, and Goalofsson are established NHLers. Hell I'd probably throw Cozens in that mix as well after the season he's had. They also went out and got Jordan Greenway to up their "grit" factor. Guys like Quinn, Power, Levi, Krebs, and Peterka aren't quite there yet but they will be very soon. This team doesn't need crutches anymore. They may not be ready to be contenders quite yet but it's time for the next step.
The reason I think they needed to move on is because any time I see a 4th line grinder get the C, it's almost always a bad idea. Dave Lowry got the C in Calgary and was so unbelievably bad that he got waived and demoted to the AHL that season. While serving as captain. Now, years later, when Jarome Iginla, who was on that Flames team, came to Colorado along with Francois Beauchemin and were brought aboard for "veteran leadership". It kinda worked for about half a season, then for the rest of that year and the next (the next being the worst season in franchise history) they were fucking terrible. And afterwards the younger players commented that they were reluctant to speak up in the locker room because they wanted to defer to the older guys, even though those older guys were clearly not carrying their weight out on the ice.
Guys like Kelly Buchberger (Edmonton), Derek MacKenzie (Florida), and the aforementioned Lowry were captains of teams that went absolutely nowhere. Okposo seems like a good guy and all, but the Sabres should have let him walk. I don't think it'll be a disaster, I'm just saying going the "veteran leadership" route, where you prize a player's off-ice contributions more than his on-ice value, is almost always a mistake.
So anyway, tl;dr: You don't have to put the captain's patch on the best player by default. But you should put it on an impact player, not some no-name scrub, no matter how good a guy he happens to be or how well-liked or how hard-working he is. That oftentimes doesn't end well. It's at least good when said scrub sees what's happening and opts to "give" the captaincy to another player, oftentimes much younger.