There had been plenty of speculation leading up to the beginning of the season on who would be wearing the coveted ‘C’ on their jersey for the Buffalo Sabres. A vocal portion of the fans, enamored by Steve Ott‘s brash and abrasive personality, wanted Ott to lead the team. An equal number of fans wanted the cool and calm Thomas Vanek to take the reins, considering Vanek has been carrying this team for years now. There was another group too that clamored for Christian Ehrhoff to be the one that wears the C for this team.
Well, the cat is now out of the bag a day before puck drop in the Sabres’ first game of the 2013-14 season – Ott and Vanek will be co-captains much like a few seasons ago when Chris Drury and Danny Briere shared the captaincy. Vanek will be wearing the C for home games, while Ott will take the mantle on the road. Except in a couple of seasons, Vanek has had the better performances at home and this should suit him fine, while Ott can go raise hell and aggravate opponents and their fans alike while on the road, hopefully to their own detriment. Ehrhoff has not been forgotten either, and will be wearing the ‘A’ on his jersey for all the games, home and away.
There will be some debate as well after-the-fact, considering some fans weren’t thrilled by the co-captaincy idea either – what do you see as the benefits or drawbacks of having co-captains? Will that unify the team more or form factions within the side?
We ran a series titled ‘Captaincy Week’ a month or so ago when we reviewed the credentials of the three players named above, and we had plenty of conversation and valid points both for and against all three were brought up. Click on the names to go to the pages – Steve Ott; Thomas Vanek; Christian Ehrhoff.