There’s no shortage of leaders in the Caps’ locker room these days. The captaincy is occupied – and rightly so – by Chris Clark, and one of the ‘A’s belongs to Alex Ovechkin. But with Sergei Fedorov departing the District this summer, the other ‘A’ has been left vacant, with a laundry list of players who could easily slip right into that role.

Both Corey and Tarik report that the candidates for the second spot include Laich, Backstrom, Steckel, Poti, Bradley, Knuble and Green. A bevy of worthy players to be sure.

But two names on that list stick out more than the others, one which may be much more obvious than the other.

The heir apparent to the ‘A’ seems to be Brooks Laich, and you honestly couldn’t find a better candidate for the job. We’ve discussed in the past how much of a leader he is on a day to day basis without a letter on his jersey, and it continues to astound me that he’s gone this long without one. The fact that seemingly everyone from Backstrom to Brashear has worn the ‘A’ at some point while Laich has gone unrecognized is beyond logic – and that’s not to downplay any of their abilities to take on the role, either.

Laich is a leader on and off the ice and has been since arriving in Washington; he’s the first guy to go down and block a shot and the last guy off the ice at practice. The other players seem to be drawn to him as a friend and loyal teammate, the fans love him, the coaches praise him and the media seeks him out – because we all know he’s good for a quote or ten.

He is, in essence, a Canadian version of an Alex Ovechkin –without the 50-60 goal scoring touch, of course.

If for some reason Laich is again overlooked, though, or if the team should go to a rotation-style alternate captaincy (not an entirely bad idea given the circumstances), we shouldn’t count out someone like Dave Steckel.

Steckel has similar attributes to Laich in that they’re both gritty, hard-working players who never take a shift off and do the little things that often go overlooked. Steckel’s equally vocal in the locker room and has really stepped up, particularly in the last year, as one of the go-to guys in all situations.

If you stopped in to see one of the veterans’ informal practices leading up to training camp, you might have noticed the boys running through a series of drills on their own. You might also have noticed that these drills were being led by Dave Steckel.

When I brought this up on Media Day, his answer was straightforward and honest – the on-ice workouts being conducted since he returned to the area were too loose and unstructured. He was frustrated with the fact that nothing was being accomplished. And so he stepped up and took them over, shouting out drills that were then followed without question and without complaint by the growing number of vets on the ice. That group included fellow leaders Chris Clark, Brooks Laich, Matt Bradley and Tom Poti.

It’s hard to imagine the Dave Steckel of 2006 doing that; it’s not surprising at all to see the Dave Steckel of 2009.
We’ve spent the better part of the summer discussing the team’s depth at so many positions – center, defense, in net, etc. It’s nice to be able to include leadership in that debate, and not in a “dear god, who could possibly wear the C??” kind of way. As in so many other areas, there is an embarrassment of riches here in DC when it comes to true leaders and really any number of names could be brought up in that category.

And as in so many other areas, it’s a nice problem to have.