Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
Nucks Fan Rebuild & Retool Center - Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
Zeev Buium got himself a lot of attention this last weekend, perhaps as much as $75 million worth. And along with it came plenty of stories about his behaviour, on and off the ice. Sound and fury signifying...what?
The Canucks have had a lively history with players wearing the C in Vancouver.
It kicked off with the 34-year-old Orland Kurtenbach, taken from the New York Rangers in the 1970 expansion draft. That was back when each team was more than happy to screw over expansion clubs, not realizing that a new team with a chance of winning can get fans. It took a while for the NHL to realize it could also be a business, but until then, talent was scarce for expansion clubs.
The captaincy changed hands frequently early on, eventually landing on "Steamer" Stan Smyl's chest. He "won" it from Kevin McCarthy when McCarthy couldn't play in the 1981-82 playoffs. Smyl took over the role and scored nine goals and 18 points in 17 playoff games, making the Final for the first time in team history.
Smyl eventually handed it over to a three-headed monster in 1990-91, but one that included 20-year-old Trevor Linden. Linden eventually took the Canucks to the Stanley Cup Final himself in his seven years as captain. Nobody knows what happened after that, but in 1997-98, he was briefly an alternate captain before getting traded to the Islanders for a great haul. While he was never captain with Vancouver again, he did come back in 2001-02, being an alternate until he retired in 2008.
After the strange, blank void for three years, the C was taken up by Markus Naslund. While it took him a couple years to grow into the role as captain, he was the most talented player to play the role until then. He was another long-tenured leader, keeping the job for seven years before he was traded after the 2007-08 season.
Then came the Roberto Luongo Experiment, two years of awkwardness and strange arguments in bars.
Going back to an extremely skilled Swede, Henrik Sedin got one more thing to hold over younger brother Daniel Sedin. He led the Canucks to their third and most recent run to the Stanley Cup Final, and kept the captaincy for eight years, retiring in 2018. He was so difficult to follow that the Canucks went with four alternates for a year before going with the obvious choice in Bo Horvat.
A change of management eventually led to a change of captains, with the reliable Horvat being shipped away during the 2022-23 season. The next year started with the shockingly skilled Quinn Hughes, who dragged the Canucks to just their third 50-win regular season. The success didn't last, and neither did Hughes, who asked for a trade out of town shortly after.
Last season was such a tire fire that management has said they don't want to name a captain just yet. Joan of Arc wasn't fond of the end result when she stepped forward, either. Three alternate captains have been named, and they're who you'd expect: Brock Boeser, Filip Hronek, and Elias Pettersson the Forward, all of whom wore an A last year.
General Manager Ryan Johnson has said he wants to wait before naming a captain, and it's not like that hasn't happened before. For a team starting at essentially zero, it might not be a bad idea to see who emerges as a leader. The catch there is that the team will want a young player to do that, but it's more likely going to be a veteran who actually does.
That isn't necessarily a bad thing, either. There aren't any illusions here anymore, I don't think. A Stanley Cup isn't being fought for in the near future, and anyone over the age of 25 might get traded. Heck, if the offer is good enough, several players under 25 are at risk, too. But even a guy who's only captain for a year can be worth following.
Names present themselves. It's probably easiest to start with the ones who are already alternates.
Whooo, doggie. No. Clearly no. This doesn't mean he can't become the captain a few years down the road, but there's a whole lot of water to cram under one bridge before that happens. I can't imagine Pettersson would volunteer for the job just now, either. He knows how the past five years have gone. He's got more than enough to focus on, thanks.
Look, I like Brock Boeser a lot. He works far harder than most fans give him credit for while maintaining a great, relaxed attitude. He's the Golden Retriever of hockey players; there's nobody who doesn't like him. Which isn't what's needed in a captain. While I prefer my captains to lead by example, sometimes a bit of belligerence is needed if a teammate needs to hear the news.
The assistant coaches are a great buffer between players and the head coach, letting the H.C. be an utter bastard when needed. That seems like a completely natural role for Boeser.
A strange thing happened after the captain got traded away last year. Filip Hronek, a player who gets forced into media scrums at gunpoint, started enjoying(?) it. Hronek famously hates the entirety of the media side of this sport, only interested in doing his job with his team. He specialized in two- and three-word answers, and those reluctantly given.
But with Hughes and the gregarious Tyler Myers (A) gone, post-game scrums fell to the other alternate captains. Hronek, much to his own surprise, got positive responses to his considered words. No one thought he was a fool, but reporters here are veterans of some hard rooms in hard times. His "grouchiness" threw exactly no one, and even got some laughs. By the end of the year, while he wasn't exactly having a fireside chat, he did get more comfortable with the chore.
Is that enough to make him captain material? No, obviously not. What does is that, and how often he talks to players on the ice and on the bench. He already does that part of the job out there, guiding veterans and advising younger players. He has many years as a top player in the league, with all the respect that's due. Sure, he could well be traded, but until then? There are worse choices.
See Filip Hronek, above.
Luke Schenn has all the respect in the world for the career he's built for himself. He's had to change his game on the fly to keep an NHL job, and he's managed to do that for 20 years. But the caveat is that Schenn might not play every game this season, even when healthy. He's here to provide stability to a young team, and may well get traded away at the deadline. Everyone understands that.
Should he have a letter? Sure. Amazingly, he's only ever had one for a single season in the NHL, an A with Toronto in 2010-11. Whether he wears one or not, he's kinda already wearing one.
I mean, you have to think this is in management's dreams, right? Zeev Buium is with the team for another nine years, after all. He is outgoing, intelligent, and doesn't mind speaking to the media at all. He's also just 20 years old and has all of one NHL season under his belt. The next few years are going to be rough ones for the Canucks, and adding the burden of captaincy to a kid who shouldn't have to answer for it seems like a terrible idea.
Buium might end up being the captain of the Canucks at some point, it could happen. A couple young guys are coming up who may fill the role better in Caleb Malhotra and Braeden Cootes, and that could be a bit awkward in three or four seasons. But this year? Nah. No sophomore should be told to lead a rebuilding team.
Hronek it is, then? Sure, he's pretty clearly the most obvious choice - IF the team needs a captain right now. Technically, wearing a letter means you're the team's representative on the ice when an issue comes up. Those are the guys who can talk to the zebras - in theory, without getting penalties for it. There are sometimes other duties associated with the role, depending on the team and how the coach likes to operate. In some places, they're the player's advocate; in others, almost an assistant coach.
The other best option is probably just waiting for a year. If the team wants to wait for one of their draft picks with "leadership" in their list of superlatives, then they will need someone else for a bit first. Again, the obvious choice is Hronek, but he's also the obvious choice for improving the team in a trade.
Just another job on Ryan Johnson's and Manny Malhotra's list.
