Leafs Of Change

By Mike Rifkin

The Toronto Maple Leafs have changed captains, giving the captaincy to Auston Matthews, replacing John Tavares. Matthews, the 2021-22 Hart Trophy winner was drafted first overall by the Leafs in 2016 and has become one of the premier goal scorers in the NHL. Matthews has won the Rocket Richard trophy three times including last season where he scored 69 (nice), Matthews is 32 goals away from 400 in his career. 

There are two different ways to look at Matthews being named captain of the Leafs : we can look at as the honor it is meant to be, which it is or we can look at it as a slight at John Tavares, personally I think it’s a little bit of both. Yes, Matthews should be the captain of the team, he is the face of the franchise and he is the team’s highest paid player. Does the captain need to be the highest paid player? No, but the investment the Leafs have put into Matthews makes him the captain and let’s be honest about something this was coming everyone knew it. Now, for Tavares who signed with the Leafs in 2018, was named captain a season later. Tavares as a Leaf has 184 goals and 419 points in 440 games played, and 12 goals and 24 points in 38 career playoff games, including the series clincher against the Lightning in 2023, helping the Leafs win their first playoff series in 20 years. 

I think there’s another piece of significance in naming Matthews the captain. Should it have happened already? Emphatically Yes, but I think there’s another significance to this, this is the final season John Tavares is under contract with the Leafs. Does that mean if the Leafs don’t win Tavares won’t be back with the club in hopes of trying to win? I don’t know, but I think if the Leafs fail again changes are on the horizon. This summer they changed the coach and the captain, last offseason the General Manager was ousted, but if the Leafs fail in 2024-25 will there be more changes? Players like Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, and Nathan Mackinnon all were franchise altering players, and they got viewed in a different light when they won a Cup. Connor McDavid, the best player in the world has yet to win a Cup, if the Leafs don’t win Auston Matthews is going to be ushered into a new spotlight. “With great power comes great responsibility”. It’s symbolic that the Leafs changed captains, because if they fail this year, the Shanaplan era will be over and the Matthews era will just be beginning.