Former Canadiens Captain Would Chose This Player As The Next Captain

The Montreal Canadiens technically have a captain in Shea Weber. However, since the news that Weber’s career is all but over, Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton have revealed shortly after their hiring that there will be a new captain for the 2022-23 season.

The nomination of a captain is always a big deal. Moreso within a franchise as storied as the Montreal Canadiens. Even despite the current Stanley Cup drought that will officially mark 29 years this June, there is still a distinctive honor and responsibility when wearing the “C” on your jersey.

Guy Carbonneau, who captained the 1993 Stanley Cup winning team and was Canadiens captain between the 1989-90 season (in which he was co-captain along with Chris Chelios) and the 1993-94 season. Before him, only for 2 seasons was there a captain who has not entered the Hockey Hall of Fame. That would be Billy Coutu in 1925-26 and Walt Buswell.

After Carbonneau came Kirk Muller, Mike Keane, Pierre Turgeon, Vincent Damphousse, Saku Koivu, Brian Gionta, Max Pacioretty and Shea Weber. Turgeon has the strongest chance to finally enter the revered Hall while Damphousse has a worthy resume. Out of the rest, maybe Shea Weber can squeak in.

Vincent Damphousse was on the latest episode of l’Antichambre on RDS and the one who captained the Canadiens for three seasons says despite the long list of candidates to become captain which includes Brendan Gallagher, Joel Edmundson, Josh Anderson and even Ben Chiarot should he re-sign, Nick Suzuki is the easy choice to don the “C”.

Damphousse has a good argument for wanting to name Suzuki as the next captain. The players respect him, he’s a hard worker, he plays a great two-way game and doesn’t shy away from a microphone, even if his interviews are often robotic but that’s how most players are “programmed” anyway.

The only negative I could find in naming Suzuki is his age. The London, Ontario native will be turning 23 in August, which if we’re honest, is awfully young to captain an NHL team.

That being said, there has been a trend of naming young stars as captain. Connor McDavid was named captain at 19 years of age. Crosby was 20. Jack Eichel was 22 when he was named the Sabres captain. Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog was 20. Dylan Larkin of the Red Wings was 20. Nico Hischier of the Devils was 19. And so on and so forth.

So no, the age wouldn’t necessarily play against the norms of the NHL. However, one can argue that he can learn from someone with more experience. Brendan Gallagher’s name is the one that pops up on top of the list.

If we are to be stuck with Gallagher for the next 5 years might as well exploit one of his best assets to the max and that’s his leadership. Even if he does carry that heft cap hit if $6.5 million, even if he never scores 30 goals again, having Gallagher as your captain and in the entourage of the team as a whole can only help not only in motivating the troops, but to also help in Nick Suzuki’s leadership development as well.

If he were to stay until the end of his contract, Gallagher will be 35 by then and Suzuki 28. Gally would likely retire by then and Suzuki would take over.

I’ve always disagreed that the best player should be the team captain. No offense to the Edmonton Oilers and/or any Connor McDavid fan, but as talented as he is and despite his ridiculous statistics, he’s a terrible captain.

The Canadiens have a history of not naming the best player but the right player. In their glory days they’ve had legends such as Henri Richard, Yvan Cournoyer, Serge Savard and Bob Gainey as captains and they weren’t the best player on the team.

Suzuki’s time will come. I just think it’s Gallagher’s time first.