Washington's Alex Ovechkin and Carolina's Eric Staal are the two newest members to the NHL's captains club. Their differences are many. On the ice, Ovechkin is as dynamic as they come, dazzling onlookers with blazing speed, a lethal shot and thunderous hits. Staal thrives in the offensive zone, using his wingspan and frame to protect the puck and create for himself and his teammates. The Caps’ leader is outgoing and spontaneous, whereas the Hurricanes’ "C" is steady and measured. 

Are either ready to lead their team? It's hard to say — Mike Richards has seen first hand how difficult it is to handle the responsibility of being an NHL captain at such a young age, especially in a feeding frenzy market like Philadelphia. But despite the turmoil surrounding him and the Flyers this season, Richards has withstood the storm and positioned his team to be a factor in the Eastern Conference. 

What do all three have in common? Youth and long contracts. And those two attributes are growing trend among today's NHL captains. Once led by rugged veterans who had seen everything a sheet of ice can present, teams are beginning to shift their leadership roles to young players inked to multiyear deals. But is having a 20-something player lead your team the way to go?

For the purposes of our discussion, we're going to group the league's captains into three categories:

• Seasoned Veterans: These captains are 35 or older and have "seen it all," so to speak.
• In Their Prime: Spanning from 28 to 34 years old, most of these captains have worked their way up the ladder to wearing the "C."
• Young Bucks: This is the 27 and younger set, players that are often their team's best player or were pegged for the captaincy from the moment they were drafted.

When you count up the 28 captains in the NHL — Toronto and Montreal do not currently have a captain — the breakdown between these three groups is fairly equal:

• Seasoned Veterans (8): Scott Niedermayer, ANA, 36; Craig Rivet, BUF, 35; Adam Foote, COL, 38; Nicklas Lidstrom, DET, 39; Jason Arnott, NSH, 35; Doug Weight, NYI, 39; Daniel Alfredsson, 37; Rob Blake, SJ, 40
• In Their Prime (11): Zdeno Chara, BOS, 32; Jarome Iginla, CGY, 32; Brenden Morrow, DAL, 31; Ethan Moreau, EDM, 34; Bryan McCabe, FLA, 34; Jamie Langenbrunner, NJ, 34; Chris Drury, NYR, 33; Shane Doan, PHX, 33; Eric Brewer, STL, 30; Vincent Lecavalier, TB, 29; Roberto Luongo, VAN, 30
• Young Bucks (9): Ilya Kovalchuk, ATL, 26; Staal, CAR, 25; Jonathan Toews, CHI, 21; Rick Nash, CLB, 25; Dustin Brown, LA, 25; Mikko Koivu, MIN, 26; Richards, PHI, 24; Sidney Crosby, PIT, 22; Ovechkin, WSH, 24

As for their on-ice success, only three of these players have worn the C for a Stanley Cup champion — Niedermayer, Lidstrom and Crosby — and all did so with their current teams. Lidstrom also won the Cup three other times with the Red Wings, and Niedermayer three previous times in New Jersey. Eight others have been on Cup-winning teams: Foote (twice), Blake and Drury in Colorado, Langenbrunner in Dallas and New Jersey, Arnott also in New Jersey, Weight and Staal in Carolina, and Lecavalier with Tampa Bay.

Until the past two seasons, results dictated that if you wanted to win the Stanley Cup your captain should be: a) North American, preferably Canadian; and b) from either the "seasoned veteran" or "in their prime" group. Lidstrom changed this two seasons ago — much to Don Cherry's dismay, I'm sure — when he became the first European captain to hoist the Stanley Cup. Last year, Crosby added to it by becoming the youngest Cup-winning captain in NHL history at 21 years old.

In the eight seasons before Lidstrom won his Cup, the average age of Stanley Cup captains was nearly 35, the median age between 35 and 36, and only American-born Derian Hatcher (coincidentally the "Young Buck" captain of the group of eight at age 26 when leading the Stars) was not a Canadian.

With Lidstrom and Crosby bucking the trends, can we presume the rules have changed? There's no denying that more and more Europeans are being named captains (currently six), but are we also entering an era where not only are young players making it to the NHL sooner, but also being placed in top leadership roles?

Yes and no. 

There has definitely been a shift, with the younger set wearing the C much more frequently than before. Out of the current NHL captains that are 28 and older, only Morrow, Iginla and Doan were captains for their current team during their "Young Buck" phase — and at the tail end at that. (Lecavalier was named Tampa Bay's captain in March 2000 at 19 years old, but was stripped of the "C" before gaining it back prior to the 2008-09 season)

With nine different teams currently sporting young captains, one can't deny the trend. But here's where the "no" comes in: seven of the nine young captains are signed for at least three more seasons (Kovalchuk, as we all know, is an unrestricted free agent at season's end; Koivu has another year on his deal), and of those seven, only Crosby (three years remaining and currently 22) and Toews (five-year extension starts next season and he's currently 21) are young enough that their current deals won't take them into the "in their prime" age bracket. That means in five, six, or seven years down the road, players like Ovechkin, Staal, Nash and Richards will — unless they're traded or stripped of their captaincy — have moved into their primes wearing the C for their respective teams. Even some players currently in their late 20s and early 30s like Lecavalier and Luongo will, presumably, move up a bracket and join the elder statesmen category of captains if they play out their deals. So something that is a trend now will look, down the road, quite different.

So, yes, the youth movement is on. But with long-term deals in place for several of the NHL's younger captains, it's hard to imagine the league will have more and more young captains in the next decade. Time will tell whether or not hitching your wagon to a young player is now the preferred road to the Stanley Cup. It worked for Pittsburgh, but can it pay dividends for Chicago, Philadelphia or Washington? Could the Sharks' 40-year-old captain reclaim the throne for the NHL's elders, or Calgary's long-time captain make a case for those in their prime? 

In a copycat league, the answer to that question could dictate where each of the NHL's 30 C's gets stitched.