More on European captains

I wrote a little bit about European captains in the NHL sometime last week, but here's something new to add to the discussion. Consider: This season, more than NHL history, more teams in the league will be captained by European players than ever before.

European captains (* - became captain this season):

1. *Zdeno Chara, Boston
2. *Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit
3. Olli Jokinen, Florida
4. Mattias Norstrom, LA
5. Saku Koivu, Montreal
6. *Kimmo Timonen, Nashville
7. *Patrik Elias, New Jersey
8. Alexei Yashin, NYI
9. *Jaromir Jagr, NYR
10. Daniel Alfredsson, Ottawa
11. *Peter Forsberg, Philadelphia
12. Mats Sundin, Toronto
13. Markus Naslund, Vancouver

The subject was discussed on yesterday's Prime Time Sports show on the Fan 590, and the panel's conclusion was that this was reflection of how many phenomenal non-North American players there are in the league. (Factoring in the American-born captains — Chris Drury, Brian Rolston and Chris Clark — there are actually fewer Canadian captains than non-Canadian ones.)

Traditionally in the NHL, the captaincy has been given to a player who was the pillar of strength on a club, the heart-and-soul types who could lead a team to victory — and not necessarily a team's best player. Looking through the list, I think what we now see is more pure snipers — players who aren't necessarily poor leaders, but who also don't necessarily fit the archetype — filling that role.

It's an interesting trend, and as I said in last week's post, it's only a matter of time before one of the above fellows leads his team to a Cup.