Brad Marchand calls out NHL teams management for making young players captains

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Ryan
September 20, 2022 (10:50 PM)

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Over the past few years the teams in the National Hockey League have been naming their young stars their team captains.

It started with Sidney Crosby when he was 20, then we saw Jonathan Toews, Gabriel Landeskog and Connor McDavid all get given the Captain role all before the age of 20, and now the Montreal Canadiens named Nick Suzuki captain who is just 23 years old, instead of older veteran players on the team like Brendan Gallagher who has been on the Montreal Canadiens his entire career.

Some players don't seem to be a fan of this trend, which is totally understandable as if you're a 35 year old veteran of 1000+ games, do you want to be led into battle by someone 15 years younger that you and hasn't been around as long?

Boston Bruins Brad Marchand doesn't believe young players should be given the captaincy role:

It's almost unfair to be giving these young kids the captaincy at 20, 21, 22, because they don't have any idea what it's like to be a captain in the NHL, you're setting a kid up for failure by doing that.

Do you agree with Brad Marchand? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/0tFdvm0Wwk� Gino Hard (@Ginohard_) September 20, 2022

Marchand has been around awhile and during his time he has had two of the best leaders in the history of hockey in Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron, so he knows a thing or two about leadership in the room.

While we have seen players like Crosby and Toews have success early in their careers when given the captaincy role, some players just don't handle the extra pressure well, and if you want your young star players to develop and lead the team on the ice, sometimes you need to take away some of that pressure of locker room leadership.

Do you agree with Brad Marchand?