A rookie Sidney Crosby lived with Pittsburgh legend Mario Lemieux. The league’s most recent Calder Trophy champ, Aaron Ekblad, shacked up with Florida captain Willie Mitchell as an 18-year-old. And the Edmonton Oilers will make sure Connor McDavid’s living situation is a positive one.
The Oilers have spoken with captain and respected veteran Andrew Ference, 36, about the possibility of welcoming a teenage phenom into his family home this fall.
“We talked about it and I think Peter [Chiarelli, the Oilers general manager] is going down the path to make sure Connor is in a really good situation,” Ference told Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal Tuesday.
“I think the interactions between young and old are important, not necessarily in the dressing room, but also at dinner time and away from the rink conversations, which are valuable.”
Despite some speculation to the contrary, to Ference’s knowledge, he will remain captain of the Oilers for the 2015-16 season. A front-office overhaul and coaching switch could have opened a window for further changes.
The blueliner asked new bench boss Todd McLellan about the ‘C’ shortly after McLellan was hired in May.
“I like things out in the open,” Ference told the Journal. “I don’t like walking on eggshells or awkward moments, player to coach, player to GM. This isn’t a vanity project. We should want everybody pulling on the same rope for the Oilers.”
When it does come time for a member of the young Oilers core — McDavid, Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle — to take over the captaincy, Ference knows whom he would select.
“Anybody can be captain… the way I look at it is, who would be the same person with or without it?” Ference said. “It shouldn’t change who you are as a person. Some guys who have the captaincy can elevate their role and how they feel, but how they act and who they are? That shouldn’t change.”
