Although Chris Pronger was officially the Flyers' captain for the entire 2011-12 season, his eye injury and season ending/career threatening concussion issues meant that he only spent about six weeks with the team. Whenever Flyers players were asked if they thought the team needed to appoint a new captain before the end of the season, the answer was always no.
Danny Briere's view was typical.
Asked in March about whether he thought the team should have a new captain appointed for the playoffs, he said, "To be honest, I've always thought that people overrate the importance of who is wearing the C. I think we've got good leadership here, and putting a letter on someone's uniform isn't going to change it one way or the other."
I agreed with Briere and the other players. There was no need to make a change last season. The leadership group was already well-established, with or without Pronger. In addition, not appointing a new captain during the season was a gesture of respect to the future Hall of Famer.
Of course, it is important for a team to have a captain who is comfortable and effective in the role. But no one player can lead alone. All successful teams -- including the past Flyers teams captained by Bobby Clarke and Dave Poulin -- have had a good group of leaders on the ice and in the locker room who supplement and support the guy wearing the C.
There is no one ideal style of leadership. A leader need not be a rah-rah type in the locker room, and he doesn't have to be a colorful quote with the media. There have been effective captains who aren't especially vocal on a day-in and day-out basis, but who lead by example and whose words carry more weight when they actually do feel compelled to speak up.
The common denominator among all successful captains: They hold the trust both of their teammates and the coaches. An effective captain keeps the team on the same page as the coach, and has his finger on the team's pulse. Incidentally, this needs to be a two-way street. The coach has to be receptive to the leaders in the locker room if he expects them to rally support around him.
Last summer, I wrote a blog in which I gave my
all-time rankings of the Flyers captains. If I did the rankings again, I would put Pronger in the unrated category along with Derian Hatcher. Even though I ranked the captains' tenures individually, keep in mind that the supplementary leadership around the captain, the on-ice talent level of the team and the coaching it received all play crucial roles in the success (or lack thereof) of a team, and can skew the perception of a captain's tenure to the positive or negative.
With Pronger unlikely to return at any point next season, the time has now come to appoint someone else as the new captain.
Whenever the 2012-13 season eventually starts, I think it's almost a foregone conclusion that Claude Giroux will be the one wearing the C. I'm not in favor of a team automatically appointing it's best player as captain, but I think Giroux can handle the added responsibilities. What's just as important is that the team's leadership group as a whole -- minus Jaromir Jagr -- is largely the same as last season.
If, for some reason, the Flyers decide to give the C to a player other than Giroux, the logical candidates are Kimmo Timonen and Briere. But I expect Giroux to be the captain and the two older veterans to be the alternates. The other key members of the leadership group will consist of Scott Hartnell, Maxime Talbot and Braydon Coburn (the longest-tenured member of the team).
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My profile article on Flyers second-year defenseman Marc-Andre Bourdon is now online at the Flyers' official Web site. Click
here for more.
This week's Across the Pond at NHL.com takes a look at former Flyers forward Jan Hlavac, who now plays for HC Rytiri Kladno (Kladno Knights) of the Czech Extraliga; the team owned by ex-Flyer Jaromir Jagr. Click
here for more.
Later this week or early next week, IIHF.com will publish an article I wrote on hockey in South Korea. A few months ago, I took an in-depth look at
hockey in Japan.
Last but not least, I contributed a rather extensive article on James van Riemsdyk to the 2012-13 Lindy Sport's In the Rink: Toronto Maple Leafs annual. Click
here for ordering information.
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