New Jersey Devils: Three Candidates For Captain Honors

The longest-tenured player on the New Jersey Devils is Travis Zajac. Think of Zajac’s career as what we hope will be looked at as “a poor man’s Hischier”. A defensive center who was also able to contribute some offense. Hischier should soar past Zajac in scoring but we can hope that he continues to grow as a two-way player. Zajac being there to help Nico for all these years now has been awesome to watch. With all of that experience that Zajac has, he might be a guy to be the captain as a bridge to Hischier.

Zajac is one of the pillars of this franchise’s history, especially recent history. He has been a part of two eras of Devils hockey as he was a big part of the team that made it to the 2012 Stanley Cup Final and now is a big part of this new wave of kids. He doesn’t have much time left so they might look at it as a situation in which they can honor someone who would do such a good job and might deserve it.

He isn’t the offensive player that he once was but he is still a good leader both on and off the ice. He is amongst the team’s leaders in ice time, face off percentages, and defensive zone starts. You can’t put a number on Zajac’s all-time value to this team so he has to be in the discussion for being the next captain. If it goes to someone else, Zajac is guaranteed to continue wearing his “A” that he has had for a long time.

Any of these gentlemen would make a great captain of this team. They need to make sure they do their due diligence when deciding because it could be a really big decision for this team as it looks to try and start winning shortly.