2024 preseason (camp, media stuff)

[Hodge]

I wonder if we're being too pessimistic about Couture. After all, he's still the captain...if he was 100% done you think they'd move the letter to someone else.

He’s 35, has played 6 games in the past 18 months and can’t even get on the ice. It’s over.

 

[Cas]

I wonder if we're being too pessimistic about Couture. After all, he's still the captain...if he was 100% done you think they'd move the letter to someone else.

This team spent five years thinking they could turn Vlasic back into an NHL-quality defenseman. They have trouble with the whole sunk cost fallacy.

Couture hasn't skated in nine months, is 35 years old, and was already slow. Odds are he never plays again, and if he does, odds are he's incapable of handling the pace of the game.

I kind of wonder if his amping up the hits over the last two years broke him. "Playing tough hockey" because he's the captain, despite being totally miscast in a physical role, was possibly a mistake for his future and the team.

 

[weastern bias]

We're in the "Chris Pronger after the eye injury" stage of the captaincy

Once someone worthy emerges they'll transfer the C, until then we're functionality captainless, it would be an insult to what Couture has meant to the franchise to strip him just to hand off the captaincy to a stop gap like Ferraro instead of waiting for a long term option to emerge

 

[Pinkfloyd]

We're in the "Chris Pronger after the eye injury" stage of the captaincy

Once someone worthy emerges they'll transfer the C, until then we're functionality captainless, it would be an insult to what Couture has meant to the franchise to strip him just to hand off the captaincy to a stop gap like Ferraro instead of waiting for a long term option to emerge

Wouldn't be the first time we've done that to a captain of ours. It's part of the business but not one that matters too much for their situation.

 

[coooldude]

Given how Grier has responded to any questions about Logan being traded, being stripped of the C, being done with his career, etc., I think that in this regime it is very clear that he's not going to be asked to give up the C, he will give up the C on his terms. My guess is:

• Couture plays 0-5 games this year
• He LTIRetires next summer (or just stays on IR since we prob don't need the cap space)
• Celebrini has a pretty solid year where he contends for the Calder and is generally all around That Dude
• Couture hands the captaincy off to Celebrini next summer in conjunction with / close to the LTIR announcement. If it's not LTIRetirement then he'll say "this is what's best for the team and I'm going to keep focusing on trying to return" but he and we all know he ain't returning at that point.
• Alternate options: someone like Toffoli gets the C for 1-2 more years until Celebrini earns it, but I bet Celebrini is the C in 2025-26.

 

[CupfortheSharks]

Given how Grier has responded to any questions about Logan being traded, being stripped of the C, being done with his career, etc., I think that in this regime it is very clear that he's not going to be asked to give up the C, he will give up the C on his terms. My guess is:

• Couture plays 0-5 games this year
• He LTIRetires next summer (or just stays on IR since we prob don't need the cap space)
• Celebrini has a pretty solid year where he contends for the Calder and is generally all around That Dude
• Couture hands the captaincy off to Celebrini next summer in conjunction with / close to the LTIR announcement. If it's not LTIRetirement then he'll say "this is what's best for the team and I'm going to keep focusing on trying to return" but he and we all know he ain't returning at that point.
• Alternate options: someone like Toffoli gets the C for 1-2 more years until Celebrini earns it, but I bet Celebrini is the C in 2025-26.

Yes. Grier is going to make a smooth transition from Couture to Celebrini. I watched a group of Sharks headed to the locker room near the end of the game last night. The way the guys surrounded him it already looked like Celebrini and his crew.

 

[weastern bias]

• Couture hands the captaincy off to Celebrini next summer

I REALLY hope this isn't what ends up happening

I'm fervently against young players being named captain just because they're good at hockey, children are not leaders of men, even if they (in the rare instances they happen to be) are ready for it themselves it's unreasonable to expect the 34 year old journeyman grinder to take the 19 year old freshfaced little boy seriously when he utterly lacks any kind of real life experience

It matters whether or not bottom of the lineup guys take the leadership group seriously because the conceit of the captaincy is that everyone falls in line with them, and "everyone" includes the guys at the bottom of the rungs of the ladder

On a more grim note, the captaincy being held by someone with no real lived experience can go wrong in other, more devastating ways, by all accounts Jonathan Toews was incredible as a young leader on the ice, yet there was no way he was prepared to deal with the situation that unfolded with the Blackhawks in 2010, and it isn't fair to expect a 22 year to know how to handle that situation especially given the much older people that had control over his career handled it as poorly as they did

I could see a world where they give Celebrini the "C" when he signs a long term extension meaning he would be 20 years old at the youngest, but I won't be enthused about it

Wouldn't be the first time we've done that to a captain of ours. It's part of the business but not one that matters too much for their situation.

The way the Sharks have done it in the past is even more insulting, lol

It wasn't even like "sorry, you're unavailable, we need to move in a different direction", it was more like, "actually, we think you stink now, lol, time for the next guy"

 

[Cas]

We don't have to have a captain - I'm skeptical that it has any real impact anyway. It'd be perfectly fine to play without one for a couple of years until our new core is settled and established.

We can also give it to Toffoli or Goodrow or Ferraro for a few years, whatever. Again, I don't think a letter matters very much.

 

[coooldude]

We don't have to have a captain - I'm skeptical that it has any real impact anyway. It'd be perfectly fine to play without one for a couple of years until our new core is settled and established.

We can also give it to Toffoli or Goodrow or Ferraro for a few years, whatever. Again, I don't think a letter matters very much.

This has come up before, but I have to say... letters do matter. There's a lot of interpersonal dynamics on any team and the stated and unstated leadership does matter, every day, in ways that folks outside the org will rarely see. Does it make a difference to the win/loss record? It is literally impossible to prove one way or the other, but who wears letters, or in any sport, who has the armband/the leadership group, has a large impact on the daily experience of players.

 

[Tw1ster]

• Couture hands the captaincy off to Luke Kunin next summer

Ftfy

 

[LadyStanley]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1839003996725588377

Rink rat confirmed

 

[weastern bias]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1839003996725588377

Rink rat confirmed

Love this kid

 

[coooldude]

Love this kid

Give him the C

 

[barriers]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1838992239684624440

 

[weastern bias]

Give him the C

I do believe he'll get there someday