The Chicago Blackhawks will not name a captain for the 2023-24 season, GM Kyle Davidson announced on Tuesday in his first media availability of the new campaign.
The Blackhawks, instead, will have a group of alternate captains that will make up the leadership core, which will be determined and announced later in training camp. I'd imagine Seth Jones and Connor Murphy will be part of it.
It's the first time since the 2007-08 season that Chicago will not have a captain after Jonathan Toews held that title since 2008.
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"The only plan right now is to sort of just let it breathe for a year," Davidson said. "We came off such a successful tenure with Jonathan that, a little bit of it is just out of respect for Jonathan, to not fill that spot right away.
"And the other part is not to put that pressure on someone else when you're coming out of a period of such, call it greatness, right? And you want the next person to be in a position to succeed. And there's no requirement to have a captain, and so we just felt that it was best to leave that, push that decision a little bit, we'll let the chips fall where they may.
"Over the next year, we'll see who emerges, see what the best option is, and decide next year if it's appropriate to name someone, we'll just take that as it comes."
It feels inevitable that Connor Bedard will be the next captain of the Blackhawks, so it makes sense to go with a group of alternates to serve as the bridge, whether that's for a year, two years, whatever it might be. The Blackhawks already have quite a few veteran leaders in the room with Jones, Murphy, Nick Foligno, Tyler Johnson, Corey Perry and others.
