In case you’ve been hiding out in the wilderness, the Toronto Maple Leafs will be bestowing their captaincy on very good hockey player Auston Matthews this week. Naturally, whenever something happens in hockey we – as everyone does – ask ourselves “How does this impact the Calgary Flames?”

Well, the Tavares-to-Matthews captaincy hand-off doesn’t have any ripple effects for our local ice hockey club, but it does remind us of four previous times where the Flames changed their captaincy… but the previous captain remained with the team.

If you’re a long-term Flames fan, you’re probably aware that the 1990s kinda sucked for the franchise. Yes, they got themselves a Jarome Iginla… but the decade was a big bummer, as the 1989 Stanley Cup team was stripped for parts in slow motion for economic reasons.

Prior to the 1995-96 season, Joe Nieuwendyk didn’t show up for training camp. He didn’t show up for training camp because he didn’t have a contract. Nieuwendyk had been awarded a one year deal in arbitration, but rather than do the whole thing again in another year he insisted on hammering out a long-term deal… and then things got frustrating for all involved, as the Flames and Nieuwendyk just couldn’t find common ground. Eventually, Nieuwendyk was traded to Dallas for Corey Millen and a Western League player whose name escapes us.

Anyway, with the incumbent captain no longer available to the club, the Flames opted to offer the gig to dynamic forward Theo Fleury. Fleury accepted the captaincy and served in the role for two seasons. The first season, 1995-96, was pretty good. Fleury had 46 goals and 96 points, both approaching career highs. In 1996-97, however, he had just 67 points and was a career-worst minus-12. Fleury’s play-style involved a good amount of ferocity and anger, and mixing that mentality with wearing the C (and being the main conduit with officials, management and the coaching staff) seemed like a weird fit. Fleury was easily the team’s best player at that point, but it just didn’t seem to mesh.

At his own request, the Flames switched the captaincy prior to the 1997-98 season, with blueliner Todd Simpson being named the next captain.

While the 1990s weren’t a great time to be a Flames fan, the early 2000s weren’t that much better. The Flames were enjoying the emergence of young Jarome Iginla into a bonafide NHL superstar… but that didn’t immediately translate into the team having success. (Spoiler: that would happen later.)

The 2001-02 season saw Iginla break out offensively, eventually capturing the Art Ross as the league’s leading scorer and the Rocket Richard Trophy as the league’s leading goal-scorer. But not much else went well, with the Flames wobbling right around the .500 mark for much of the season despite having the NHL’s best offensive player on their roster.

At the end of the All-Star Break, sitting five points back of the final playoff spot, the Flames opted to make a change. Veteran forward Dave Lowry was stripped of the captaincy, with blueliner Bob Boughner and centre Craig Conroy named co-captains. However, changing up the captaincy didn’t solve all of the Flames’ problems that year, and they went 10-14-4-1 after the All-Star Break and missed the playoffs by 15 points. Lowry remained with the club, but battled injuries down the stretch and only played nine games.

(Two Flames players had 10+ even strength points after the All-Star Break: Iginla and Conroy. That’s it.)

When the Flames put the C on Conroy’s jersey at the end of 2001-02, it didn’t really change his game at all. So when they decided they wanted to revert to a single captain for the 2002-03 season, they consolidated the Cs on Conroy. Boughner remained with the Flames, serving as an alternate captain, and had a pretty effective season.

But while Conroy had the C, Iginla continued to establish himself as the top player on the team with his strong play.

We discussed this a bit during our 2004 anniversary look-backs, but it’s worth revisiting. During 2003’s training camp, Conroy decided after a discussion with head coach Darryl Sutter to hand the captaincy to Iginla, offering his friend the gig during a conversation in the steam room.

Iginla, the team’s top scorer and one of the top players in the league, became captain. Conroy served as an alternate captain. The Flames went on to make the Stanley Cup Final that season, and Iginla went on to be the team’s longest-serving captain, all-time leading scorer, and a first ballot Hockey Hall of Famer. (We’re not saying that it’s all because Conroy recommended he become captain, but the timing of the move was pretty effective all things considered.)

The Conroy-to-Iginla hand-off is probably the most prominent recent example of a veteran captain handing over the C to a team’s strongest offensive player and remaining with the club. We’ll see if it works out as well for Toronto as it did for the Flames.