When I think of great leaders in the game, I recall players I refereed like Ray Bourque, Mark Messier and Joe Sakic. All of them were outstanding individual players with very different styles of play but what they had in common was they knew what example to set. They knew when to support a teammate to the hilt. They knew when to privately pull a wayward teammate into the stick room and read him the riot act. They knew how to speak to the officials and communicate with their coaches and vice versa.
Maybe Sidney Crosby does these things better than I give him credit for doing. I doubt it, though, because all the circumstantial evidence points to him still not being an especially effective team leader in the realms beyond his stellar skills.
When I observe Crosby, I see a player who has a good work ethic and an elite combination of finesse and power in his game. However, I also see a player who is too prone to be goaded into -- or to initiating -- nonsense after the whistles. When Crosby does that, he takes himself and his team off its game.
