I think the Oilers made a mistake naming Andrew Ference their Captain, and I mean that with all due respect. I am not going to argue that Ference is a bad player or a bad pro, far be that from the truth. That said, this is not his team.
ON FERENCE
The Captain Ference is a veteran of 815 NHL games and could definitely hit the 1000 plateau before his career is finished (Barring catastrophic injury). That is not something that happens if you are a bad player or a mediocre professional. He was a contributor on a Cup winning team and is probably more physically fit today than when he was 20 years old, but…Captain?
Ference came into the team as a UFA player making a hometown stop on his professional tour. His experience on a winning club and commitment to physical fitness impressed the rookie Head Coach so much that Eakins named the club’s new Defenseman the Captain of a squad that neither he as the coach nor Ference as a player barely knew.
Perhaps this was one of the factors that worked in his favor. The new Coach wanted this to be the beginning of a new Era in Oiler Hockey. The rebuild was over and Playoffs were the target now, not draft picks. The team coveted outside voices (not to be confused with OUTSIDE VOICES) and Ference was most definitely an outside voice, but is he perhaps too far outside?
Ference didn’t suffer any of the hardship that has faced this team over the better part of the last decade. He didn’t have to change the contact information for “Coach… in his iPhone 4 times in the last 5 years. He isn’t a part of the team’s nucleus. In fact, he’s a decade older than the oldest member of Edmonton’s core group.
Now, I’m not privy to the kind of access it would require to know for certain that he has an issue relating and connecting with the team’s core, but I definitely would have waited some time into the season before I named him the Captain of this squad.
WHOSE TEAM IS IT ANYWAY?
This is Taylor Hall’s team. Right or Wrong, this team belongs to the 22 year old player that the Oilers Drafted 1st Overall in 2010. He doesn’t have Ference’s experience, he hasn’t belonged to a winning franchise as a Pro, he doesn’t have his name on the Stanley Cup, and he didn’t “Wow… his new coach with his commitment to physical fitness.
Hall is, however, the face of the Oilers’ franchise. It’s Hall and the players who came into the league with him or after him who are selling tickets in this town. It’s with him that the team lives and dies every night. It’s the group that surrounds him on and off the ice that will take Edmonton out of the basement. This team belongs to those young men and Hall is their leader.
I don’t think any harm has been done having Ference wear the C for this season, but I’m also not sure what good it has done either. The team is still dreadful no matter who the Captain is. Surely though someone at Oilers HQ had to figure that Ference would only be wearing the C for a short time until it was obvious that Hall was the one actually leading the club, right?
Whether they want to admit it or not, it’s obvious that Hall is the one leading this team and the man wearing the C is on the bottom pairing with Mark Fraser. They don’t have to make a change mid-season, but the real Captain of this team is Number 4.
When the mistake is corrected the Oilers’ Captain will be the same age as the rest of the Core, the focal point of the Franchise, and capable of being a difference maker on any given shift. Until then they have the wrong guy.
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