Brad Marchand says some NHL teams are setting their captains up for failure

When Brad Marchand speaks, you can be almost sure he's going to say something that not everyone agrees with. We have another example of that from an interview Thursday where Marchand told reporters he believes some NHL teams are naming captains that are too young.

"It's almost unfair to be giving these young kids the captaincy at 20, 21, 22, because they don't have any idea what it's like to be a real captain in the NHL," said Marchand.

He wasn't referring to any particular player, just responding to the growing trend in general. As it stands right now, Nick Suzuki of the Montreal Canadiens, Nico Hischier of the New Jersey Devils,and Brady Tkachuk of the Ottawa Senators would be among the youngest ones to wear Cs for their team. That said, guys like Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Connor McDavid, and Alex Ovechkin were all named captains early on in their careers.

"You're setting a kid up for failure by doing that," Marchand insisted.


While there is some wisdom in Marchand's words, personally, I believe it really depends on the player. Is every NHLer ready to be a captain in their early 20s? Absolutely not. Are some of them mature enough to do so? In my opinion, yes.

Marchand has the luxury of having a veteran star player as captain in Patrice Bergeron. Despite being with the team for his entire career, Bergeron was only named captain of the Bruins in 2020, when Zdeno Chara left.