Passing On The A

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So as we all learned just last season, Ron Wilson has no reservations relieving players of the alternate captaincy duties should he see fit. Tomas Kaberle could attest to this first hand.

The Toronto Maple Leafs finally seem to be a team on the upswing. We saw a riveting second half to the season, particularly post trade deadline after such players as Beauchemin, Versteeg and Kaberle were shipped out for draft picks, up and coming prospects and a seemingly refreshed Joffrey Lupul, bringing me to the topic of the captaincy.

The Leafs went into the season last season with a captaincy trio of Phaneuf (C), Beauchemin(A) and Komisarek(A). After Beauchemin was shipped out a letter was appropriately passed on to a player that typifies Brian Burke hockey; Colby Armstrong. Another thing that occurred at the time was a reduced role for Mike Komisarek,  followed by a truckload of verbal abuse through the internet waves from disgruntled fans expecting more from the once heavily coveted defender.

Now, as camp sits in the horizon, there seems to be a new top 6 group of defenders (Phaneuf, Aulie, Liles, Schenn, Franson and Gunnar) primed to take the reigns on the blueline which could very well result in a further diminished role for the Long Island native. While a trade is always a possibility it is by no means a probability.

So the question is folks, if Komisarek does in fact lose his alternate captaincy, by way of trade or leadership demotion, who would be best suited to earn the role?

Personally, I see a group of:

C- Phaneuf  A- Armstrong A- Schenn

What say you?