It was clear to anyone who closely follows the Buffalo Sabres that Kyle Okposo was going to be named captain for this season. There was no if. Only the when that was taken care of Saturday. And Okposo acknowledged Monday it's a highlight moment in an NHL career that dates to 2008.
"It's just a tremendous honor and I couldn't be more proud," Okposo said after practice in LECOM Harborcenter. "I'm just gonna continue to be myself. If you start to act a different way, or do things differently, the guys see through that in a heartbeat. You can't fool anybody. So authenticity is definitely number one on my list."
On Saturday, hours after their first post-training camp practice, the team announced that Okposo was named captain for the 2022-23 season.
The team announced Okposo would be the captain, with Rasmus Dahlin and Zemgus Girgensons as the alternates, in a presentation Saturday night on its social media channels. It showed video clips from a private team and family event held earlier in the day at KeyBank Center where jersey presentations with the letters were made.
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"Kyle is someone that's has so much respect within our locker room, within our organization within the community, within the hockey world," General Manager Kevyn Adams said prior to practice. "That's just his reputation. And as good of a player is he's been in is career, he's a better person. He's clearly the leader."
Okposo struck it rich with the Sabres, signing a seven-year, $42 million free agent contract on July 1, 2016. But he's hardly had a linear path to his hockey career or his life since then. He has four children now and has endured multiple injuries, including the serious concussion issues that landed him in a neuro ICU unit and prematurely ended his season in 2017. On the ice, the four-time 20-goal scorer cratered to just two goals in the 2021 pandemic season mostly under Ralph Krueger before bouncing back and collecting 21 goals and 45 points last season.
"My whole career hasn't been in a straight line. And it very rarely is," Okposo said. "You have ups and downs and you deal with life and different situations on the ice, off the ice,. To kind of have the year that I had last year and be pretty healthy and continue to come into this year and feel good and have have some stability, it just feels great."
One of the more well-known stories around the Sabres in recent times was the text message Granato received from Okposo on March 29, 2021, that said simply, "We will win." It came after the Sabres' franchise-record 18th straight loss, a devastating overtime defeat to Philadelphia in which Buffalo blew a three-goal lead in the third period. Okposo was telling the interim coach he was helping the players believe in the wake of Krueger's firing, and the Sabres snapped the skid against the Flyers two nights later.
Although the past three weeks didn’t give us a better idea how the Sabres will fare when the games begin to count against the standings, a few notable questions were answered.
"I've spoken quite a bit how important he was to me as an interim coach. He was significant in helping us implement what needed to be implemented immediately," Granato said Monday after practice. "And my relationship developed with him fast. I got to know lots of things about him. Deep right away, and I saw a guy that has this deep passion for the game and needed to reconnect with that. So for me, it's pretty neat to see."
"Donnie and I and the coaches spend a lot of time talking to Kyle and he's been giving us feedback," Adams said. "'Hey, I see this. I sense this. Maybe we need to push a little harder, maybe we need to pull back.' So he's got a great feel for that day to day. The other thing he has great feel for is perspective, the ups and the downs and maintaining consistency. And that comes with experience."
The Sabres have not had a captain for 13 months, since Jack Eichel was stripped of the role about two months before getting traded to Vegas. They let leadership play out organically last season, with the front office and coaching staff watching the interactions. Dahlin and Girgensons were alternates virtually the entire second half of the season and the team didn't want to make changes there. The club elevated Okposo.
"I think everybody now has seen enough of Kyle to realize that this is the right move for our organization," Granato said. "I'm real proud. It's not like we just named him captain, because we could have done that a year ago and I don't think it would have been right. I love the way we did it and just let everybody see our team, get to know our team and get to know this guy."
An interesting subplot to the Okposo decision is that he's in the final year of his deal that carries a $6 million cap hit. Teams wouldn't ordinarily make a 34-year-old pending unrestricted free agent their captain, so the Sabres' decision portends an extension will come at some point.
"We'll see. I've thought about it a little bit, but I'm just really looking forward to getting going," Okposo said. "I think we'll cross that bridge whenever is appropriate, and then I'll figure it out from there."
"We haven't talked about that specifically, but we just feel that he's earned this right through the way he handles himself to wear that 'C,' " Adams said. "And that'll take care of itself."
Okposo's status for the opener
The Sabres open the season with games here Thursday night vs. Ottawa and Saturday afternoon vs. Florida in KeyBank Center but Okposo's status is a question mark.
Okposo returned to practice Monday in a gold sweater, which was supposed to indicate non-contact. He has been off the ice and not at practice since suffering an upper-body injury in Tuesday's exhibition game against Carolina. The Sabres previously specified Okposo is not suffering from any head or neck ailment.
"Definitely working hard to try and get back but no definitive answer for you yet," Okposo said when asked about his availability. "I felt great today. Took a bump or two that I wasn't supposed to but that's hockey so I was definitely encouraged."
Granato said Okposo wanted to come back late last week, but the Sabres held him off the ice over the weekend.
"He's in a yellow jersey, which means no contact but I don't think that was a no contact practice for him," Granato said. "He's fully engaged. So yeah, very encouraging. Obviously no secret, he's going to want to play Thursday. And I'm probably going to be cautious of that based on the fact that he was still where he's at now with the yellow jersey."
