We’ve almost made it through the dead zone of August. But with a few weeks left in Slow News Summer, I realized we haven’t done a full roster-building exercise. That’s not good, so let’s dive into a topic that’s been in the news lately: captains.
Today’s question: Who wins, a team made up of guys who captained more than one team, or guys who were never captains at all?
Should be simple enough. But first, a few ground rules™:
Let’s see where this goes …
Two players in, and we’ve locked down two faces on the NHL’s Mount Rushmore of all-time greatness.
For the other side, we’re going to break out what will become a key piece of our non-captain strategy: looking for stars who played for a long time on a team with an established captain. For example, the Islanders dynasty of the 1980s was led by Denis Potvin, which means we have both Bryan Trottier and Mike Bossy available. Bossy never played for any other teams, while Trottier’s stint in Pittsburgh coincided with some guy named Mario, so they’re both on our first line. Sure hope they have some chemistry.
For the third spot, we’ll look to a guy who I’ll admit to being surprised never wore a C: Montreal disco scene legend Guy Lafleur. He wasn’t captain during the Habs 1970s dynasty (that was Henri Richard and then Yvan Cournoyer), and Serge Savard and Bob Gainey had the honor in the 1980s. I wondered if Lafleur had a late-career turn with either the Nordiques or Rangers, but no dice, so he completes a first line for Team Non-Captains that will give Team Multi-Captains a tough matchup.
Given all the star power on those first lines, we’re clearly going to need some two-way players who can take care of their own end on these rosters. So let’s start Team Multi-Captains’ second line off with Dave Keon, who qualifies based on six years in Toronto and one in Hartford. He’ll skate with two modern stars, as Ron Francis (Hartford/Carolina and Pittsburgh) and Joe Thornton (Boston and San Jose) are both eligible. That’s about 3,300 career points of offense on Keon’s wings, if you’re keeping track.
Team Non-Captains isn’t going to be able to match that level of firepower, but they do get off to a great start with a surprise name: Bobby Hull, who scored 610 goals without ever serving as captain in Chicago (or later, Winnipeg or Hartford). We’ll give him two more modern linemates, including the first active player to pass our 15-season threshold in Patrick Kane, another Blackhawks icon who never wore the C. And since we said we don’t need to worry about position up front, we can go with one more winger in Cam Neely, who was a leader in Boston but wasn’t going to get the captaincy with Ray Bourque around.
There’s a slight theme for Team Multi-Captains on this line, as I break out my homer glasses and go with an all-Leafs group. We’ll start with Doug Gilmour, who was captain in Toronto and then later in Chicago. (Yes, Gilmour was captain of the Hawks, but Patrick Kane and Bobby Hull never were. The league is weird sometimes.) He’ll skate with Lanny McDonald, who wasn’t captain in Toronto but was in Colorado and Calgary, as well as John Tavares, who served in Toronto in addition to being the most beloved captain in Islanders history.
While all of those guys would be decent picks, I’m going to start our fourth line with maybe the most underrated 1,200-point player in NHL history: Vincent Damphousse, who captained the Habs and Sharks. I’ll put another former Habs captain on his wing in Kirk Muller, who also wore the C for the Devils. And the final spot goes to Canucks and (of course) Islanders captain Trevor Linden, if only because he and Messier should have lots to talk about between shifts.
Meanwhile, Team Non-Captain is drowning in depth, so much so that they can leave names like Peter Bondra and Steve Shutt in the press box. Instead, let’s go with roughly 1,800 goals’ worth of HHOF forwards in Mike Gartner, Dino Ciccarelli and Marián Hossa.
