Shane Doan, the Coyotes, and 7 ways an NHL captaincy should or shouldn’t end

Shane Doan’s career with the Arizona Coyotes is over.

He’s a free agent.

I did not expect to write those two sentences back-to-back. Ever. Not about Doan, a player who’s been around the NHL for two decades now and loyally served one of the league’s perennially bad teams for 14 years. And I certainly didn’t expect to write about awkward goodbyes between Doan and the Coyotes in a public restaurant.

It leaves me thinking about what fans prefer when they know their beloved franchise captains have to leave. Hockey is unique in that sense. The captains are the face of your franchise and can become sports icons or lightning rods. Over the last few years, as the old guard has given way to a new wave of young players, we’ve seen notable captaincies end in different ways.

So I’ve decided to run through the scenarios, listing them from most ideal to least ideal. Note that these aren’t exactly rankings; just a general progression from “great” to “good” to “sure” to “please no.”

Examples: Nicklas Lidstrom (DET), Scott Stevens (NJD), Joe Sakic (COL), Rod Brind’Amour (CAR)

The ideal, right? Longevity gets checked off and so does loyalty as the city’s legendary hockey leader hangs up his skates in the uniform he knows best. No lingering animosities. No “what ifs.” Just a lot of feel-good memories as he takes one final lap around the ice. He’s probably crying. You’re crying. All of us are crying, and our tears form a cresting wave that carries him into hockey heaven.

I guess.

Examples: Brenden Morrow (DAL), Jarome Iginla (CGY), Eric Staal (CAR), Andrew Ladd (WPG)

The next-best thing, I think. If your aging captain is running out of time to win a Stanley Cup, your team is about to hit a reset button anyway and he’s about to hit free agency, might as well ship him off. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. He gets a shot at a Cup with a contender. Your team gets to say it did right by him while also reaping some assets that will help the future. Fans feel good about all of that and get to root for him in the playoffs.

Examples: Shea Weber (NSH), Jason Spezza (OTT), Alex Ovechkin (ohmygodisaidit), Dion Phaneuf (TOR), Chris Pronger (STL), Lindros (PHI), Rick Nash (CBJ), Joe Thornton (BOS)

Some of these are more palatable than others. Spezza and Phaneuf weren’t captains long enough to make it a Huge Story™ when they left. (Though ask Senators fans about the return in the Spezza trade and watch them cry.) Weber was a beloved Nashville captain, but he brought back P.K. Subban so that’s a wash. Pronger and Lindros are still legends in those cities.

Nash was a necessary move for a sputtering Blue Jackets franchise. But Thornton still haunts Boston to this day.

At any rate, this isn’t a good way to go. Like excising a wart or something. It’ll hurt for a while, but the pain should go away.

.... Let’s not get into that again.

Examples: David Backes (STL), Zach Parise (NJD), Saku Koivu (MON)

The reasons for this usually vary. Koivu had spent 14 years with the Canadiens. By the time he left, it was time to move on anyway. Parise led the Devils to a Stanley Cup Final recently, yes, but we all know now what kind of direction they were headed in. Holding onto him was a pipe dream that summer anyway and best for everyone involved.

Backes is a surprising one, if only because he still seems to fit the St. Louis Blues mold so well. We know how that tale ended, too: Without Backes there to shield his team from Ken Hitchcock’s coaching style, the Blues faltered this year.

The running theme here, though, is the unceremonious part. Leaving in free agency is a choice that captain and his team have to make. The captain in these situations is just as, if not more, ready to part ways as the team itself. That’s not a great feeling if you’re a fan and usually a sign of bad times to come for your franchise.

Examples: Vincent Lecavalier (TBL), Mike Modano (DAL), Dustin Brown (LAK), Joe Thornton (SJS)

Usually awkward, but not always. Sometimes, like in Modano’s case, you find out the player isn’t captain material and he’s more than happy to relinquish the “C”. Other times, the change is due to clashes with the coach (like Lecavalier and John Tortorella). In both of those cases, the ex-captains remained on the team for a long time with few issues.

The same goes for Joe Thornton. Stripping the captaincy can be uncomfortable, but if the player and the team both want to stay together, those wounds usually heal. Especially if the new captain is a good choice, like Joe Pavelski.

The flip side is Dustin Brown’s case:

But that’s still not as bad as ...

Doan captained the Arizona Coyotes for 14 of his 21 seasons in the desert. Three of those 14 seasons included playoff runs of varying lengths. Winning has never been a promise for Doan The Captain, but he stuck through it anyway.

That faith obviously started to fray this year. Here’s what he said when the Coyotes traded Martin Hanzal at the deadline (emphasis mine):

“It’s really hard; obviously, he’s a huge part of our team and someone you get to play with for 10 years. You appreciate and understand how valuable ... you can’t really replace him, and ... the fact that we just continue to seem to go—I don’t know, it’s hard to understand how exactly—I mean, you understand people’s hands are tied. Just don’t get it.”

Any of the aforementioned options were on the table, you’d think, other than stripping the captaincy. Arizona had a chance to trade him to a contender at the deadline with free agency looming, but didn’t. That left two of the options on the table:

The Coyotes took the latter path. And boy, was it unceremonious.

First was the news that Doan wouldn’t be protected in the expansion draft. Then came the news yesterday that the Coyotes wouldn’t even offer Doan a contract — not even a half-hearted one to pretend they tried after decades of loyal service.

Just a motion to the door.

If that doesn’t sound ugly enough, get a load of Doan’s comments to Arizona Sports 98.7 FM (emphasis mine again):

“Yeah I’d say I was surprised,” Doan said. “I wasn’t expecting it and there is an element of surprise in that. You think it’s going one way … and I realized very quickly where the conversation was going and was trying to process it all. … I wasn’t shocked that they didn’t want me to play again. I understand the direction they are going. I don’t completely agree with a lot of the decisions that they’ve made, but at the same time it needs to be reaffirmed that I’m a player. Sometimes you start to think you are bigger than you are. I’m a player and my job is to play.”

...

“I left fairly quickly. I didn’t want to say or do anything at the moment that could be detrimental. You don’t want to respond with emotion. I’m a competitive and emotional guy and sometimes it gets the better of me. I shook his hand and said thank you and left.”

He struck a nicer tone at the end of that, but it still sounds like a player ready to be done with the Coyotes. And his agent definitely didn’t mince words with what seemed like a shot at Arizona’s futility as a hockey market during Doan’s career:

Vented frustrations in-season. Barely minced words at the close.

A two-decades-long run with a team and its fan base shouldn’t deteriorate this publicly and acrimoniously. It sucks, and I’ll argue that the end of Doan’s captaincy is the worst possible way for a captaincy to end. Unlike Lidstrom, it doesn’t end intact. Unlike Iginla, it doesn’t end with good intentions from both sides. Unlike St. Louis, it doesn’t end with fireworks that quickly burn out.

Doan’s career in Arizona is ending quietly, bitterly and with a sour taste that will linger for a long time. Not sure Coyotes fans, the franchise or Doan himself deserves that after all they’ve been through.