Vanek Watch: The Co-Captain

-Buffalo Sabres

This morning after a team practice, Sabres head coach Ron Rolston (most noted for sending John Scott out to fight Phil Kessel in a preseason game) decided to announce his captain for the team, after the position was left vacant by now Wild forward Jason Pominville.

In classic Rolston fashion, he makes an interesting choice as he picked two players to wear the 'C'. Former Star Steve Ott gets the honor for all Sabres road games, and former Gopher (and soon to be former Sabre) Thomas Vanek got the nod for all Sabres home games.

The fact that Rolston felt the need to go with two captains shows that he either has little confidence in either to wear the C alone, or he knows one of these players might not be finishing the season with the Sabres so the other could step in as the full time captain.

Surprisingly, since Rolston was handing out captain C's like they are gold stars, displaced goaltender Ryan Miller was left standing without anything (shooters beware of the emptiness around his upper left shoulder).

The Wild currently employ four players (Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, Jason Pominville) who all could be the team captain. A fifth (Vanek) would make for a killer power play line (since Pominville plays the PP point with Suter), don't you think?

Congrats in advance to Thomas Vanek for wearing the 'C' for the fewest games in Sabres and possibly NHL history (Elias Sports Bureau needs to check this stat). As long as you are not named Roberto Luongo, you certainly won't be the worst in NHL history!

(Unrelated story: Mike Yeo currently checking the NHL rulebook to see how many C's he can actually hand out)

Vanek Watch is an ongoing series on The Team of 18,001 for the 2013-14 season.