Sharks in need of veteran leadership

Bill Clement

Before the season began, I picked the Sharks to go to the Stanley Cup finals. But I now feel San Jose will fall short of that unless it adds a much-needed ingredient -- veteran leadership.

A veteran exodus
After losing in six games to Calgary in 2003-04 Western Conference finals, San Jose saw seven veterans depart: Mike Ricci, Vincent Damphousse, Mike Rathje, Todd Harvey, Alexander Korolyuk, Jason Marshall, and Curtis Brown.

This left the club somewhat barren when it came to experience and leadership. And it's Ricci whom I think the Sharks miss the most.

But I fully understand the personnel decisions that Sharks general manager Doug Wilson and the organization made in moving forward.

San Jose has a solid base of homegrown talent, and ample room under the salary cap because these younger players have learned to play winning hockey without yet being in the league long enough to command huge salaries.

The Sharks were the only NHL team not to add a new face by the start of training camp. That's because they wanted a younger team that was fast enough to succeed in the new NHL, and one that has some room to work with under the salary cap.

San Jose's roster has a core of younger players with great skills, size, and speed, but they are just not getting it done. So if the tangibles are there, and they are not getting it done, than to me it's the intangibles that have to be looked at.

One of the key intangibles is the internal leadership. The Sharks have been incredibly inconsistent, and that I attribute to the lack of veteran leadership.

Captains not always leaders
Sharks captain Patrick Marleau is one of the nicest guys in the sport. But he never asked to be captain. And in a lot of ways, Marleau is a reluctant captain because he is just such an easy going guy. Joe Thornton, who is captain of the Bruins, is the same way.

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Marleau and Thornton have done nothing wrong in their roles, but I think since they are dominant players their organizations made them captains, and with the personalities they have, they may have been miscast in these roles.

When you are in an organization as a coach or as a general manager, very often you have little choice but to make your best player the captain. He's gets a ton of ice time, and he's going to be the team's offensive leader so seldom is there another player that jumps out as a better candidate to be captain.

How does a team not make its best player its captain? It's a great dilemma because if the team's best player isn't a great leader and captain, what does a team do about it?  It can only hope if the player is young he will eventually develop into a more rounded leader.