8 usually. Cam Neely/Eric Lindros.
I wore 88 for a year and just didn't feel right for some psychological reason.
In years were a seniority player already had 8, I went with 12. For no particular reason, it just seemed to fit. Actually, my conspiracy theory, is that teams and other team's coaches tend to focus on numbers quite a bit at the start of a game. 9s, 4s on defense, or people with high numbers like 89.... And for a couple years when I was in bantam and whatever I was convinced that wearing #12 was an inconspicious number and I'd go under the radar for a period and get more open ice. Until they got a feel of who the actual teams best players were..
Might be just self fulfilling prophecy, but I was sold on it and thats half the reason I'd go with 12.