‘I’d love to be captain of the Calgary Flames’: MacKenzie Weegar could assume major leadership role in 2023-24
11 months ago
The Calgary Flames are currently without a captain, and new head coach Ryan Huska has stated that the team will be naming one in the near future. There are lots of candidates that could be on the list for the new coaching staff, including Mikael Backlund and Rasmus Andersson. But, another option could be MacKenzie Weegar.
On Flames Talk with Pat Steinberg last week, we got to hear firsthand about how Weegar feels about what someone wearing the ‘C’ means for the players and the potential of being the next captain of the Flames.
“It’s huge,” Weegar said when asked how important it’s going to be for someone to be the captain in 2023-24. “That’s your number one guy that can talk to the media. He’s great for the community. He wants to go to war for you every night. He shows up every night; he’s in the gym; he leads by example. And there’s a number of guys in that room that could do that.”
And when asked about his name coming up in the conversation for Flames captain, he said this:
“That’s a huge honor. If they did choose me, I would love to be the captain of the Calgary Flames. There would be a lot of work. I think I’m ready for it, and I would love to represent the Calgary Flames as the captain. It would be a real honor and a real pleasure.”
Weegar, this off-season, hasn’t shied away from being honest about the way things went down in 2022-23 for the Flames, and despite the issues last season in regards to production from big players, he didn’t have any problems molding his already strong two-way game to Darryl Sutter’s system. He produced some of the best defensive results across the entire NHL, and he even put up 31 points in 81 games while doing so well on the other end of the ice.
Our very own Robert Munnich wrote an article detailing reasons why Weegar should be the next captain of the Flames, and it’s hard to argue that the still relatively new Flames defenseman doesn’t deserve serious consideration for the honor. Of course, it’s not going to be that simple for general manager Craig Conroy and the Flames coaching staff because, as Weegar pointed out, there are plenty of great candidates in the Flames’ locker room. Nonetheless, Weegar is here for the long run, and after adapting to the city and organization last year, it appears that he’s happy with where he is.
So, even though we still haven’t heard anything from the people making the decisions on who the next captain of the Flames will be, we know that Weegar would be more than willing to accept the job and the tasks that responsibilities that it carries.
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