Whether elected by teammates or named by coaches or management, NHL captains are more crucial than ever
PHIL ESPOSITO WILL FOREVER be remembered as the man who stood up for his teammates when an entire nation had lost faith. His post – game speech, addressing the Canadians who booed their own during the 1972 Summit Series, changed the face of a series eventually won by one goal in the eighth and final game. So you would think F.sposito would hold a lot of reverence for the titular leadership role in hockey, the captaincy, which he himself held as a member of the Rangers.

“Captains dont mean a goddamn thing,” he said. “I didnt even know about it when I got to New York. When I got there they had the “C” on and I said to the coach, This is wrong, I shouldnt do this; this is wrong. Why did you do this to me?
So not so much, eh?Original Six hell – raiser Eddie Shack has a similar take. His respect for longtime Toronto Maple Leafs captain George Armstrong had nothing to do with the letter on his breast.
“It wasnt a big deal,” Shack said of the “C”. “He was just a great guy. He loved the team and if he could help out, he would. You could trust him.”
Truth is, the captaincy is more important now than it ever has been. With the NHL getting younger since the lockout, having a point man to not only lead the troops but also guide the greenhorns into battle has become paramount. Thats what led the Buffalo Sabres players to vote in veteran defenseman Craig Rivet as captain before the 2008-09 campaign, despite the fact he had played for San Jose the previous season and was new to the dressing room himself.

“Its somebody you look up to,” said Sabres right winger Jason Pominville. “Leadership can come from different personalities. Craig is pretty vocal and we had a younger group of players that could be helped in that way.

“The influence he had right away, for us, I think it was a great fit. He basically represents us.”
For Rivet, popularity was something he worked to achieve as soon as he got to Buffalo.
“1 was lucky to come into town early for camp,” he said. “I spent a lot of time getting to know guys about a month before camp even started.”
And what he found was a group that wasnt used to getting in each others faces.
“It was a very young team,” Rivet said, “and the older guys we had at the lime were great guys, but quiet. Before our first game, I dont think
one word was said in the dressing room. Guys needed to be challenged – you want to be challenged by your peers.”
But not all NHL captains are the chatty type. In fact, if there was a common theme amongst many, its the term “lead by example.”
“Im 100 percent lead – by – example,” said Dallas Stars captain Brenden Morrow. “My weakness is being vocal.”
And while Morrow has worked on improving that side of his leadership, he also pointed out that the captain of the most successful Dallas team ever – the 1999 Stanley Cup champions – had a similarly quiet leader in defenseman Derian Hatcher.

“Not much was said from him,” Morrow said. “It was guys like Mike Keane, Guy Carbonneau and Joe Nieuwendyk. Hatcher just went out and played hard and physical, and intimidated the other team.”
Kings captain Dustin Brown took his cues from several former teammates, including Ian Laperriere, Mattias Norstrom and Hall of Famer Luc Robitaille.
“The one thing Luc taught me not only as a leader, but as a player, is to have fun playing the game,” Brown said. “Looking around the league now, the one guy who stands out for me is Jarome Iginla, because he does it all out there.”

When leaders are asked about leaders, its often the lead – by – example crew that get the kudos. This is particularly true internationally, when countries such as Canada form powerhouse squads tilled with captains from different NHL cities. A natural balance must be found on these teams, lest a too – many – chefs situation ruin the broth.
For Morrow, who won Olympic gold with Team Canada in Vancouver, it was a flock of current and former Ducks who led the charge. Chris Pronger, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry were very vocal in the dressing room, while a certain slick – skating future Hall of Famer – and the man wearing the C – picked his spots.

“You had your handful of guys who did a lot of talking and then you had Scott Nieder – mayer, who just went out there and played,” Morrow recalled. “But when he did talk, he had a presence.”
Rod BrindAmour, a pretty successful captain in his own right as a member of the Carolina Hurricanes, had the same take on another leader when he played for Canada at the 1996 World Cup.
“A guy like Steve Yzerman, he did whatever they asked of him,” BrindAmour said. “They had him on left wing, playing a role he didnt necessarily want to play, but he did it. I thought, wow, thats how I want to be.”

And that willingness to sacrifice for the greater good of the team was evident when BrindAmour helped the Canes to the top of the mountain in 2006. That Cup triumph naturally meant the world to the Hurricanes, but it also played a crucial role in keeping hockey relevant in Carolina in the first year back from the lockout.

“In some places you didnt have to build a fan base back, but here we did,” said BrindAmour, who now serves as the teams director of forwards development. “We all had that focus and that meant signing autographs and doing things you dont always want to do during the season.”

To continue a theme, BrindAmour led by example.
“If youre buying into that, everyone will,” he said.
The payoff came when the team and its fans drove each other to the Cup, but it was in that final where BrindAmour did his most important work in the dressing room. With a chance to close out the title in Game 6, the Canes instead dropped a dud in Edmonton, losing 4-0 to send the series to a winner – take – all final game.

“They blew us out of the water, that game wasnt even close,” BrindAmour recalled. “Afterward, I told the guys to let that game go. It was all positive. I wanted to make sure every player left that rink knowing that game was over and we still had a chance to go home and play for all the marbles. Obviously, it all worked out.”

BrindAmour also had the honor of hoisting the Cup before any other player and once again, displayed his leadership prowess by seeking out another tenured teammate to get the first pass, defenseman Glen Wesley.

“We had five or six guys in the same spot as me who had played 13, 14 seasons and hadnt won it, now this was our time,” BrindAmour said. “We sal together on planes for years, hes got kids, too – I was looking for him.”

But the captaincy also has its down sides – specifically when a player has it taken away. BrindAmour experienced that last year when the Canes thought it prudent to bestow Eric Staal with the captaincy during a horrid campaign in Raleigh.

“It wasnt the way I would have wanted it to have happened,” BrindAmour said. “In a way, it was almost like firing a coach. 1 discussed it with Jim Rutherford and, looking back, our season was pretty much shot and you always want to get better for the next year, so this way Eric got a chance to get his feet wet.”
Many great players have lost the C in recent history, including Vincent l.ecavalier in Tampa, Patrick Marleau in San Jose and Mike Modano in Dallas, where the captaincy was given to Morrow by team management.

“It wasnt ideal,” Morrow said. “There was a lot of controversy with Mike not wanting to give it up, but he was always good to me about it.”
Rivet also saw the demands of the captaincy as a member of the Montreal Canadiens during Saku Koivus reign. The Habs werent exactly a powerhouse at the time and the fact the Finnish center didnt speak French rankled some of the locals. But Koivu responded with pure class.

“It was an extremely difficult position and he handled himself very well,” Rivet recalled. “There were very few guys who wanted to stay in the room and he was there every day.”
Being captain is definitely a younger mans domain these days. Sidney Crosby got the keys in Pittsburgh at age 19. Chicagos Jonathan Toews was just 20. This past summers new captains – Nashvilles Shea Weber and Torontos Dion Phaneuf – are both 25, while Brown was still a month shy of 24 when he was handed the C two seasons ago. Not that there wasnt some trepidation involved.
“Obviously its a role that I wanted to take on, but at the same time going into it at such a young age, with some older guys sometimes its intimidating going into the dressing room,” Brown said. “Luckily I did it with a young team and it was one of those things where we grew together into leadership roles.”

The scrappy left winger even sees a benefit to having the captaincy early in his career.

“You can mold and correlate,” he said, “and with the help of some other guys you can build a culture and push it in the right direction. I think you have a better understanding of what the younger guys are going through and most of the older guys can take care of themselves – they know what they need to do to get ready.”

Maybe thats why a cagey Hall of Famer such as Esposito isnt so keen on the C As the game has changed over the years, so has the meaning of its traditions.
“We considered Johnny Bucyk our captain even though he was the assistant,” Espo said of their years in Boston when no one officially wore the C “Because he could arrange the best parties.