The San Josee sharks organisation played the 2014-2015 season without a team Captain, after a 111 pts season... where its under 35 years old captain played all the games, had his contract extension signed before the end of the year and was healthy.
We can never know that much, we speculate, if any of this exist at all, but the people that know the most about it and where the most invested about being right opinion do not seem to disagree.
Can we imagine that happening to the Gretzky, Joe Sakic, Steve Yzerman, Sidney Crosby, Chara, Toews, Lidstrom, Patrice Bergeron teams ?
They removed the C to Marleau to give it to Blake, not Thornton right away....
Maybe it was Joe Thornton himself decision, but that could be argued to be worst not better in that regard.
And if we are really crass, the statement that Toews team still winning the cup in those circumstance made the media wrong about being a good leader, will be subjective here, depends on how you define the goals.