With the NHL preseason about to get underway, the New York Rangers won’t be in a hurry to name the next team captain.
The New York Rangers will continue to go without a team captain, for the time being, as they’ve done for the last year and a half.
New York has not had a captain since the trade of Ryan McDonagh in the 2017-18 season. Having gone with four alternates already, they look to be in no rush to name a new one.
While talking to the media, team president John Davidson explained the reasoning for not naming a captain right away saying that “it has to be right the person.”
Here’s JD on whether a captain will be named. #NYR pic.twitter.com/upO9aDf6xQ
— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) September 12, 2019
New York has plenty of options to chose from in naming a captain. Key veteran players such as Mika Zibanejad, Marc Staal, Chris Kreider, Jesper Fast, Artemi Panarin are just some of the options to chose from. All five of those players deserve some consideration and bring a different element to the ice and in the locker room.
Choosing a captain is not as easy as it may seem due to the potential on-ice implications. It’s been well documented how Ryan McDonagh’s game dipped after the pressure the “C” brought the young defenseman.
It looks like the Rangers don’t want to make that same mistake with this group. New York has been through five different captains since the start of 2000.
Should New York opt to go without a captain this year, it’s safe to assume Kreider, Zibanejad, Staal, and Fast come out of training camp wearing “A’s” once again.
