Quote:
Originally Posted by VilleN
McDavid is their problem. He is not captain material... he is not built for it, doesn't have the character to do it. He doesn't do it by leading by example as he plays selfish one-way hockey. As long as he is the captain, there will be no leadership on that team. The culture problems on that team are his responsibility, and from what I can intuit from interviews, play, etc. it is a responsibility he does not want, but is stuck with.
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This is exactly right... I said it when they named him captain. In Edmonton's rush to name him the youngest captain ever in the NHL, they never stopped to ask the question about if it was a good move, in Edmonton, that doesn't matter, having the "youngest" or "fastest" is almost like winning, they can raise another banner to the rafters as having the youngest captain in NHL history - that was the objective - if McDavid was a good captain or not... it didn't matter.
But now how do you fix it? The answer is that they can't... they can't take the 'C' away from Connor until they trade him, or plan to trade him, or lose him to free agency. The only other way is to wait until Connor is older and nearing the end of his career... my point is, to fix the mistake, they have to lose him. It's really sad... because there was no reason at all to name him Captain in the first place. Your best player doesn't have to be Captain... or even an assistant Captain, Johnny has no letters. There is no rule that your best or highest earning player has to be captain, Jordan Staal is the Captain in Carolina, MacKinnon (a stretch I know) in Colorado. McDavid strikes me as a guy that wants to come to the rink and play... he doesn't want to lead. I think Iginla wasn't the best captain choice, but he was certainly better than McDavid.