Senators Finally Name a New Captain Just in Time for the Real Games

The Ottawa Senators are finally putting a letter on someone's chest. NHL insider Elliotte Friedman dropped the link Tuesday afternoon for the live announcement of Ottawa’s new team captain, officially ending whatever leadership limbo the franchise was floating in.

Naming a captain right before the season starts is the hockey equivalent of picking a designated driver while you are already in the Uber. It had to happen, but you kind of wish they figured it out before the tab got opened. Still, for a team trying to drag itself out of the Atlantic Division basement, establishing an actual locker room hierarchy is step one.

"Elliotte Friedman tweeted a link to the live announcement, signaling the end of Ottawa's captaincy vacancy."

The timing makes sense with the preseason wrapping up. Ottawa is coming off a mixed bag of tune-up games, dropping a 4-2 decision to the Toronto Maple Leafs last week before bouncing back with a 4-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens.

The new captain is going to have some immediate fires to put out on the roster front. Andre Burakovsky is currently day-to-day with an undisclosed injury and hoping to be ready by October 3, while Kurtis MacDermid is already parked on injured reserve with an upper-body issue until at least Halloween.

From a betting perspective, a captaincy announcement does not move the moneyline, but it does stabilize the vibes. If you are holding an Ottawa futures ticket, you want to know exactly who is going to be yelling at the referee when a Tuesday night game in November starts going off the rails.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, the real work starts. The Senators have their leader, the preseason is basically over, and the only thing left to do is prove this new era actually looks different than the last one.