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Why so few winger captains?

YippieKaey

How you gonna do hockey like that?
Apr 2, 2012
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Stockholm Sweden
Yeah as the title says, i get the feeling that it´s predominantly centermen and at times defencemen that captains their teams, and the "great" captains especially seems to fall into this theory like Sakic, Sundin, Lidström, Gretzky, Lemieux, Bourque, Messier( started of as winger though) Stevens, Yzerman, Pronger etc.

Am i just imagining this and if not what might be the reason? The positions inherent demand to take more defensive responsibility and thus rendering the player itself more responsible in terms of general behaviour etc? Coincidence?

Please discuss:)
 
YippieKaey said:
Yeah as the title says, i get the feeling that it´s predominantly centermen and at times defencemen that captains their teams, and the "great" captains especially seems to fall into this theory like Sakic, Sundin, Lidström, Gretzky, Lemieux, Bourque, Messier( started of as winger though) Stevens, Yzerman, Pronger etc.

Am i just imagining this and if not what might be the reason? The positions inherent demand to take more defensive responsibility and thus rendering the player itself more responsible in terms of general behaviour etc? Coincidence?

Please discuss:)
Click to expand...

Captains are expected to be leaders in every facet of the game, on and off the ice. You have the right thinking in terms of defensive responsibilty playing a factor, not to mention puck possession and control. Most of these guys you have listed control the game very well, either from the middle or the back.

With that being said, however, there are some prominent winger captains, especially recently. This pas playoffs, all of the captains were wingers and 3/4 played a similar style. These guys are more of the "inspire guys with big play" type than the "take team on your back" type. Some guys just have different leadership styles than others. Depends on what kind of team you have.
 
Captains

YippieKaey said:
Yeah as the title says, i get the feeling that it´s predominantly centermen and at times defencemen that captains their teams, and the "great" captains especially seems to fall into this theory like Sakic, Sundin, Lidström, Gretzky, Lemieux, Bourque, Messier( started of as winger though) Stevens, Yzerman, Pronger etc.

Am i just imagining this and if not what might be the reason? The positions inherent demand to take more defensive responsibility and thus rendering the player itself more responsible in terms of general behaviour etc? Coincidence?

Please discuss:)
Click to expand...

Canadiens captains include Maurice Richard, Toe Blake, Yvan Cournoyer, Bob Gainey, Mike Keane, Brian Gionta, who were wingrs. They also had a goalie Bill Durnan as captain.

Long time Leaf captain was George Armstrong a winger. Likewise Ottawa with Daniel Alfredsson, Iginla in Calgary.John Bucyk in Boston.

Just a quick unresearched comment.
 
Canadiens1958 said:
Canadiens captains include Maurice Richard, Toe Blake, Yvan Cournoyer, Bob Gainey, Mike Keane, Brian Gionta, who were wingrs. They also had a goalie Bill Durnan as captain.

Long time Leaf captain was George Armstrong a winger. Likewise Ottawa with Daniel Alfredsson, Iginla in Calgary.John Bucyk in Boston.

Just a quick unresearched comment.
Click to expand...

So in the history of the NHL and all the captains that have been in the NHL, you named 11 players for your argument...Now I know there are more winger captains, but the fact is captains mostly come from the center or defense position. I think this is because they hold the most responsibility so that makes the better players and more responsible players want to play those positions.
 
Your Position

stlblues9 said:
So in the history of the NHL and all the captains that have been in the NHL, you named 11 players for your argument...Now I know there are more winger captains, but the fact is captains mostly come from the center or defense position. I think this is because they hold the most responsibility so that makes the better players and more responsible players want to play those positions.
Click to expand...

There are five skater positions: RD/LD/RW/C/LW.

So simply by the positional distribution, 40% of the captains should be defensemen, 20% should be centers. So 60% should be centers or defensemen. So you are simply stating the expected obvious.

Show a significant deviation from the 60% obvious and you may have something but I seriously doubt that such a significant deviation exists given that certain years half the captains were wingers.
 
Canadiens1958 said:
There are five skater positions: RD/LD/RW/C/LW.

So simply by the positional distribution, 40% of the captains should be defensemen, 20% should be centers. So 60% should be centers or defensemen. So you are simply stating the expected obvious.

Show a significant deviation from the 60% obvious and you may have something but I seriously doubt that such a significant deviation exists given that certain years half the captains were wingers.
Click to expand...

With that logic centermen captains should constitute 20 percent of the NHL captains through all time, which is something im having quite a hard time believing, i would actually go so far as to say that probably 40-50 percent of the captaincies have been inhabitated by centermen, thus rendering a statistical anomaly. I want to press the fact that i haven´t exactly been empirical about my statements, it´s more of a hunch kind of thing. I mean name a couple of winger captains in the mold of Stevie y, Sakic, 99, Messier, Clarke, Sundin, Modano etc. And yes im relatively young and thus my references are fairly recent. But still. And there´s twice as many wingers as centers statistically aswell so that salts the steak even more.
 
At the moment the following centers are captains:

Getzlaf
Staal
Toews
Horcoff
M Koivu
Crosby
Backes (RW and C)
Thornton
Lecavalier
H Sedin

So, that is 10 out of 30 at the moment. It means they are indeed overrepresented. Florida and Detroit are vacant. I'd say that Zetterberg will be captain of the Wings which would make it 11. Pronger is listed as the captain of the Flyers and I would guess that he will be replaced by Giroux or Briere which would make it 12.

Chara, Weber, Streit, Pronger, Phaneuf are the only current D-man captains which means they are underrepresented.

Now obviously this is a small sample size, but 20% should mean 6 center captains whereas it might be double that next season.
 
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Self-selection bias.

Players who play a well-rounded game, are selfless, and are leaders on the ice have a natural tendency to succeed at the center position. Those traits are also what teams look for in a captain.
 
Check

YippieKaey said:
With that logic centermen captains should constitute 20 percent of the NHL captains through all time, which is something im having quite a hard time believing, i would actually go so far as to say that probably 40-50 percent of the captaincies have been inhabitated by centermen, thus rendering a statistical anomaly. I want to press the fact that i haven´t exactly been empirical about my statements, it´s more of a hunch kind of thing. I mean name a couple of winger captains in the mold of Stevie y, Sakic, 99, Messier, Clarke, Sundin, Modano etc. And yes im relatively young and thus my references are fairly recent. But still. And there´s twice as many wingers as centers statistically aswell so that salts the steak even more.
Click to expand...

Not a question of belief just do the leg work and check the data.

Last 10 seasons of the O6 Era

Boston 1957-66 Fern Flaman(D),Don McKenney(LW/C), Leo Boivin(D), John Bucyk(LW)
Chicago 1957-1966 Ed Litzenberger (RW) Pierre Pilote(D)
Detroit 1957-1966 -Gordie Howe,(RW) Alex Delvecchio(LW/C)
Montreal 1957-1966 Maurice Richard(RW), Doug Harvey(D), Jean Beliveau(C)
New York Rangers 1957-1966 George Sullivan(C), Andy Bathgate(RW),Camille Henry(LW) Bob Nevin(RW).
Toronto Maple Leafs 1957-1966 George Armstrong(RW)

1958-59 and 1959-60 seasons alone you had 4 RWs as Captains - Litzenberger, Howe, Maurice Richard and Armstrong, 1 Center - George Sullivan, 1 Dman - Fern Flaman
 
Boston Bruins have had 19 captains.

WINGS
Johnny Bucyk (RW)
Wayne Cashman (LW)
Terry O'Reilly (RW)
Rick Middleton (RW)
Ed Sanford (LW)

CENTER
Jason Allison
Joe Thornton
Don McKenney
Cooney Weiland

DEFENSE
Sprague Cleghorn
Lionel Hitchman
George Owen
Jack Crawford
Fernie Flaman
Leo Boivin
Ray Bourque
Zdeno Chara

CTR/DEF
Milt Schmidt

RW/DEF
Dit Clapper
 
So out of the 19 captains in Boston history only 5(20 percentish) have been wingers, even though wingers make up 40 percent of a team.
 
Canadiens1958 said:
Not a question of belief just do the leg work and check the data.

Last 10 seasons of the O6 Era

Boston 1957-66 Fern Flaman(D),Don McKenney(LW/C), Leo Boivin(D), John Bucyk(LW)
Chicago 1957-1966 Ed Litzenberger (RW) Pierre Pilote(D)
Detroit 1957-1966 -Gordie Howe,(RW) Alex Delvecchio(LW/C)
Montreal 1957-1966 Maurice Richard(RW), Doug Harvey(D), Jean Beliveau(C)
New York Rangers 1957-1966 George Sullivan(C), Andy Bathgate(RW),Camille Henry(LW) Bob Nevin(RW).
Toronto Maple Leafs 1957-1966 George Armstrong(RW)

1958-59 and 1959-60 seasons alone you had 4 RWs as Captains - Litzenberger, Howe, Maurice Richard and Armstrong, 1 Center - George Sullivan, 1 Dman - Fern Flaman
Click to expand...

Howe became Captain of the Red Wings during the 58-59 season. Kelly was the Captain 56-58 after Lindsay was stripped for his union involvement.
 
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