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When players vote for a captain it can turn into a popularity contest, and Pacioretty was very well liked by his teammates. It’s almost impossible not to like Pacioretty as a person. He wore the “C” on his sweater with great pride and did the best job he could, but became an easy scapegoat for Bergevin after the Canadiens finished 28th in the overall NHL standings last season and the captain slumped to 17 goals after four straight 30-goal seasons.

Bergevin almost certainly didn’t like it after the Canadiens got off to a 1-5-1 start last season and after going six games without a goal, Pacioretty said: “How am I going to go tell my teammates that we got to be better when I’m the worst one on the ice? That’s what keeps you up at night … that’s what keeps me up at night. Trust me, if you guys think I don’t care you got it all wrong. If anything, I think too much and I care too much.”

Pacioretty did care too much — letting things bother him more than he should have. But that’s just who he is and he was honest with his thoughts at the time. In hindsight, he should have kept them to himself. As I wrote at the time: “They probably don’t teach you to say stuff like that in leadership seminars, but one thing a leader can’t be if he wants to succeed is a phoney.”

Pacioretty is who he is. Like everyone, he has strong and weak points as a person, but he wore the “C” with class and didn’t deserve the treatment he received from the Canadiens at the end.