Brendan Shanahan reveals who got the idea to name Auston Matthews as Leafs captain

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Julien Trekker
August 17, 2024 (2:19 PM)

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The Toronto Maple Leafs' President of hockey operations Brendan Shanahan revealed who got the idea to name Auston Matthews as team captain.

Shortly after the Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs in the first round by the Boston Bruins, the organization started to think about what changes could be done internally to avoid another swift elimination.

They started by replacing Sheldon Keefe as head coach with Craig Berube. Then, they signed many interesting players, such as Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

Later, they decided to name Auston Matthews as the 26th team captain, forcing Tavares to step down.

Tavares, who's been the captain for the past five seasons, officially gave Matthews the "C" earlier this week, which led to a lot of questions about what happened behind the scenes.

Brendan Shanahan recently opened up about the process.

He stated that he was the one who talked to Tavares about making that move earlier this summer.

In his own words:

"I actually went over to John's house and sat with him in his backyard, and Aryne was there, and really talked to him about this and to gauge his comfortability when this was first being talked about."

Here's the full interview:

Brad Treliving added that Tavares knew this day was coming when they discussed the idea:

"He understood my thoughts on it. We had a couple of discussions, but from the moment it was raised, he understood. As he said to me, he knew at some point this day was coming."

Such important decisions aren't made lightly, and the fact that this comes from Shanahan, who must feel that his job is on the line, highlights the fact that the team needed to make that change to reach the next level.