I firmly believe this team, and Backlund himself, would have been better over the past few years if he had just been named captain after Gio like he should have.
There would have been no back and forth with Chucky/Johnny/Whoever with who should be captain. Sutter assigned some mystical aura to the Flames captaincy that just had this awkward feeling to it. Everyone on the team obviously respects him, and I think Tkachuk would have been fine playing here with him as captain for the first 5 years or so. I also think that even if they offered the current captaincy to anyone else they would have said no unless Backlund wasn't here. I HIGHLY doubt Andersson would have accepted it, usurping his respected countryman. It's not the Swedish way.
However, if he'd been captain this whole time, it'd probably feel okay to move on from him, or even have him bequeath it to someone else.
Sutter really messed that up IMO. I think Sutter, the on-ice tactician, still was top of his game. But the personnel side really passed him by.
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