Captain Phaneuf

[Fanatic]

The other night (I think it was opening night right after Andy Frost introduced "Your Captain, Dion Phaneuf) Nik pondered whether or not anyone else felt that Phaneuf was being forced upon us. It's an interesting question. I remember a point last year when fans were booing Phaneuf.

Phaneuf was injured last year early in a game in which the Leafs lost and then he was out for another 16 games after that. In total the Leafs were 5-9-3 in those 17 games and they were 32-25-8 when Dion was in the lineup. If the Leafs managed the same win % without him last year as they did with him they would have had 90 points and been just a hair away from a playoff spot.

I often read about what a great "presence" he is in the dressing room etc. and how valuable he is to the team in that way. I wasn't sure if I was buying that or if it was the management attempting to gain the fans acceptance of him. But I am not sure what to think.

I do know that in the first two games of this year he certainly looks like the guy doing it all out there - leading in ice time, getting points, on the PP, has good +/- and he delivered a clean check that most of us won't forget for a long time.

Dion is growing on me as a solid Leafs captain and someone worthy of the C on a team with a history of some great captains.

I am just wondering how everyone else is feeling about "Your Captain".

 

[Zee]

If he continues to play like he has in the first two games, he'll fit nicely into the role of captain.  He's expected to lead both on and off the ice, we don't know about off the ice since we can't see into the dressing room, but on the ice he's definitely showing the way right now.  He's grown on me as captain since about January of this year.

 

[Bender]

The other night (I think it was opening night right after Andy Frost introduced "Your Captain, Dion Phaneuf) Nik pondered whether or not anyone else felt that Phaneuf was being forced upon us. It's an interesting question. I remember a point last year when fans were booing Phaneuf.

Phaneuf was injured last year early in a game in which the Leafs lost and then he was out for another 16 games after that. In total the Leafs were 5-9-3 in those 17 games and they were 32-25-8 when Dion was in the lineup. If the Leafs managed the same win % without him last year as they did with him they would have had 90 points and been just a hair away from a playoff spot.

I often read about what a great "presence" he is in the dressing room etc. and how valuable he is to the team in that way. I wasn't sure if I was buying that or if it was the management attempting to gain the fans acceptance of him. But I am not sure what to think.

I do know that in the first two games of this year he certainly looks like the guy doing it all out there - leading in ice time, getting points, on the PP, has good +/- and he delivered a clean check that most of us won't forget for a long time.

Dion is growing on me as a solid Leafs captain and someone worthy of the C on a team with a history of some great captains.

I am just wondering how everyone else is feeling about "Your Captain".

As a collective I think we overanalyze everything. The guy doesn't have to be a media darling to be captain. Is he being pushed on us? It doesn't matter to me to be perfectly honest.

 

[sampson]

I'm starting to appreciate him as the Captain. This will be an important year for him to get solid fan support.

I just don't feel like I did with Gilmour (fav leaf ever) and Sundin yet.

 

[Zee]

I'm starting to appreciate him as the Captain. This will be an important year for him to get solid fan support.

I just don't feel like I did with Gilmour (fav leaf ever) and Sundin yet.

Will be tough to get that sort of support until Leafs make the playoffs and he's contributing in a big way. 

 

[Kin]

The other night (I think it was opening night right after Andy Frost introduced "Your Captain, Dion Phaneuf) Nik pondered whether or not anyone else felt that Phaneuf was being forced upon us. It's an interesting question. I remember a point last year when fans were booing Phaneuf.

Obviously one of the biggest differences between Phaneuf and any other Captain the Leafs have had in at least 20 years or so is that Phaneuf got the Captaincy without first endearing himself to fans with several years of all-star performance. It's that sort of thing that made me wonder a little at the introduction. When he was described as "your captain" my sort of gut reaction was along the lines of "Well, no, he's your captain". Deciding on a player and stitching the C on his jersey doesn't endear him to me particularly.

 

[Scot4bz]

It's a tough gig being captain in Toronto. There have been a lot of changes and that will require time to adjust to. I think he is becoming more comforatble with the role as time passes.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

The other night (I think it was opening night right after Andy Frost introduced "Your Captain, Dion Phaneuf) Nik pondered whether or not anyone else felt that Phaneuf was being forced upon us. It's an interesting question. I remember a point last year when fans were booing Phaneuf.

Obviously one of the biggest differences between Phaneuf and any other Captain the Leafs have had in at least 20 years or so is that Phaneuf got the Captaincy without first endearing himself to fans with several years of all-star performance. It's that sort of thing that made me wonder a little at the introduction. When he was described as "your captain" my sort of gut reaction was along the lines of "Well, no, he's your captain". Deciding on a player and stitching the C on his jersey doesn't endear him to me particularly.

I think you're reading too much into that introduction.  I think they would announce any captain that way, whether it is Phaneuf or someone else.

 

[BlueWhiteBlood]

I'm a huge Sundin fan, so there is a pretty high standard as far as a Captain of the Maple Leafs goes, but I think Phaneuf is going to make a good captain. I know people criticize him for coming in and blasting the music, but there is more to him than that. I think he has the respect of all his teammates already, as judged by the way the team talks about him and he's certainly showing it on the ice since he recovered from his injury last season.

I never worried about his game, as I always knew he was going to step up and improve at some point. I'm still not sure what was the cause of his decline in Calgary, that made Calgary management feel like they could trade him. I'm not convinced it was his salary, as when he plays at this level, he's more than worth his pay IMO. If he can keep up this level of competitiveness, we'll be some happy people at the end of the season, as he is fun to watch on the ice.

All and all, being the captain is really only important to his teammates as I see it, yeah he'll be the face after tough loses and when things aren't going well, but ultimately, he needs to lead by example and rally his mates to improve their game and I think he can do that. I think he is starting to become what we all hoped when we woke up on that January morning to the excitement of a huge trade and believe we got the best player by a landslide.

 

[Kin]

I think you're reading too much into that introduction.  I think they would announce any captain that way, whether it is Phaneuf or someone else.

I don't think I'm reading anything into the introduction itself(although I don't remember Sundin being introduced as such) but rather the question was more about the reality of the situation which the introduction represented.

 

[AlmosGirl]

It's a tough gig being captain in Toronto. There have been a lot of changes and that will require time to adjust to. I think he is becoming more comforatble with the role as time passes.

I agree.  Will he ever get the adoration that Sundin had?  Probably not, Sundin was uniquely special but I think he's doing fine so far.

 

[Kin]

I agree.  Will he ever get the adoration that Sundin had?  Probably not, Sundin was uniquely special but I think he's doing fine so far.

I don't know how unique Sundin is in that regard. Sundin, an argument could probably be made, was maybe the least beloved of the last three Maple Leafs captains.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

I think you're reading too much into that introduction.  I think they would announce any captain that way, whether it is Phaneuf or someone else.

I don't think I'm reading anything into the introduction itself(although I don't remember Sundin being introduced as such) but rather the question was more about the reality of the situation which the introduction represented.

I seem to remember Sundin being introduced as such, but who knows without any video to look back at.

Sundin seems like he was "forced" on the fans.  Which raises another question: does the captain have to be someone who has universal adoration at the time?  If so, why?

 

[cw]

I haven't entirely bought into his captaincy yet. To date, he's sort of been like Rob Ramage as captain - one of the better potential talents on the team who hasn't performed up to expectations or hopes.

I can't fault the team for naming him because they were without a captain for so long. He may well have been the best choice under those circumstances.

Like many Leafs fans, I'll embrace him more as captain when he consistently brings a better performance than he's been able to deliver the last year and a half.

If he plays many of the next 80 games like he played the first two games of this season, that would go a long way to improving my acceptance and respect for his captaincy.

We've talked about how important it is for Reimer to do well. I think the old cliche applies: your best players have to perform like your best players. To date, Dion hasn't really done that - rarely picked as a star in a game during his first one and a half seasons.

As a Leafs fan, I'll support Dion as captain. I just need more from him to really buy in. I don't think that's being unreasonable.

 

[Kin]

Sundin seems like he was "forced" on the fans.  Which raises another question: does the captain have to be someone who has universal adoration at the time?  If so, why?

Like I was saying, I think the big difference there is that Sundin, whatever else someone might say about him, was unquestionably the team's best player when he was named Captain. That's not a case of damning with faint praise either as he was in the midst of his best Leaf season when he got the C.

I can understand someone not knowing enough about Sundin as a player/person in '97 to have the same questions about Sundin's off-ice qualities that we may have about Phaenuf's but at the very least nobody could doubt Sundin's deserving the nod as a player.

I've been a Leafs fan long enough to know when Andy Frost uses the voice he uses before he expects a big cheer from the crowd. When he used it during Phaneuf's intro it received, I thought, noticeably less of a fan reaction than either Grabo or Schenn got.

 

[Corn Flake]

Seigel had some comments from Grabovski where he said the room is night and day between what the Habs had when he was there and this Leafs group.  He said the Habs room was full of cliques and the Leafs room is like one big group.

Sure Grabbo is a tad biased as he didn't leave the Habs on very good terms, but it speaks to some good leadership in the room if there are no cliques, and Phaneuf would be the key part of that leadership.

 

[Erndog]

Seigel had some comments from Grabovski where he said the room is night and day between what the Habs had when he was there and this Leafs group.  He said the Habs room was full of cliques and the Leafs room is like one big group.

Sure Grabbo is a tad biased as he didn't leave the Habs on very good terms, but it speaks to some good leadership in the room if there are no cliques, and Phaneuf would be the key part of that leadership.

http://www.tsn.ca/toronto/blogs/jonas_siegel/?id=377822


Grabovski remembers a vastly different dressing room environment in Montreal during his early NHL days.

"Everybody made a group," he said, "and they [stayed] in groups; French guys with French guys, Czech guys with Czech guys. Here [it's] better because everybody's together. It doesn't matter what kind of nationality.

"That's better than if you're just friends on the ice."

 

[Bender]

I haven't entirely bought into his captaincy yet. To date, he's sort of been like Rob Ramage as captain - one of the better potential talents on the team who hasn't performed up to expectations or hopes.

I can't fault the team for naming him because they were without a captain for so long. He may well have been the best choice under those circumstances.

Like many Leafs fans, I'll embrace him more as captain when he consistently brings a better performance than he's been able to deliver the last year and a half.

If he plays many of the next 80 games like he played the first two games of this season, that would go a long way to improving my acceptance and respect for his captaincy.

We've talked about how important it is for Reimer to do well. I think the old cliche applies: your best players have to perform like your best players. To date, Dion hasn't really done that - rarely picked as a star in a game during his first one and a half seasons.

As a Leafs fan, I'll support Dion as captain. I just need more from him to really buy in. I don't think that's being unreasonable.

I don't think you necessarily need to be the most talented guy on the team in order to be the captain, and I don't know if having a rough year really means he shouldn't be captain. If he's shown flair for leading the room and giving his all amongst other qualities the staff think are important then I think those are the necessary conditions to be made Captain. And while I think he's good, I don't know if he's the best we could've chosen.

I agree with an earlier post in the sense that there wasn't much time to endear himself to fans before becoming captain. Based on his never say die attitude I would give Grabbo a good look for the C.

 

[Peter D.]

Despite doing minimal to actually warrant the captaincy (blaring the music when he came in doesn't count), I thought it was a matter of time and a foregone conclusion he was going to be the next captain of the Leafs the second he was traded to the team as he was Burke's prized possession. 

I didn't mind the selection as I felt he was the one who best suited the role (Schenn was/is still too young), but he has yet to take his game to a higher level.  Many know I was a big Sundin fan, but he was able to reach that extra level yet still got an unfair shake despite what he was able to accomplish (you can appreciate it even more now that he's gone and the team's been garbage without him since).  Granted, Sundin did take a little while to grow in the role, so Phaneuf deserves to be given that rope as well.  What I would like to see though is him being able to pull this team along and bring it out of the dumps when things are going wrong. 

The majority of Leaf fans love big, physical Canadian players, so I don't think it'll take much for him to be endured.

 

[ZBBM]

If he plays many of the next 80 games like he played the first two games of this season, that would go a long way to improving my acceptance and respect for his captaincy.

This is how I feel about it too.  The C is something you earn, IMO, with your play as a Leaf.  He hadn't earned it when he got it.  There was no urgency at the time to have a captain (and maybe there really still isn't -- I don't want to argue this here, but I am sympathetic to claims that the C is vastly overrated).

For me, almost anyone would pale in comparison to Sundin as captain, but that's my personal favoritism speaking.  I don't particularly warm to Phaneuf's personality, but he has been superb in the first 2 games and that's what really matters.  If he keeps it going, I'll be happy to have him wear the C.