i remember bitd after bertuzzi broke through everyone wanted him to replace naslund as captain because he was physical and grumpy, which meant he was “passionate”
then later after luongo gave up the C there was a very sizeable contingent of fans who wanted kesler to get it, for the similar reasons
this is the JTM argument. all three guys are pouty babies to varying degrees but this is misinterpreted by some observers as passion and fire. and exactly none of those three has/had the respect of the refs. now kesler legitimately was a fiery competitor, warrior, and leader but we also now know that the downside is he’s going to take his ball and go home. bertuzzi was actually not even that fiery and obviously proved himself many many times over to have the emotional maturity of a puppy. and i think we can all agree with hindsight that bert would have been an even more disastrous captain than naslund, which ouch.
which brings us to JTM. does he care? sure. is it productive? sometimes. is he realiable? absolutely not.
i would have been totally happy with jovo as the WCE captain, and bieksa as the gillis core captain. i would have been equally happy with any of linden, ohlund, or morrison as the WCE captain and keeping henrik as the gillis core captain.
imo, hughes makes the most sense on this team by far. there has never been a public ultimatum hughes, or an emo hughes, or a losing his shit on the bench hughes, or a disconnected controller hughes, or a just following orders no matter how stupid hughes. there has only been a totally committed and never not bettering himself hughes.