More details behind John Tavares stepping down as Leafs captain revealed

For the first time in their history, the Toronto Maple Leafs have an American-born player as team captain, following John Tavares' decision to pass the leadership role to Auston Matthews, who is now the 26th captain in franchise history.

Following Toronto's latest exit in Round 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Toronto management came together to discuss the possibility of making the switch and later visited Tavares at his home to discuss the situation. Team president Brendan Shanahan detailed the meeting between himself and Tavares along with GM Brad Treliving, something they were sure to do before making the decision official. 

"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," Shanahan said.

According to Treliving, Tavares knew that this day was inevitable.

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

"The way Tre, Brendan, and the club have communicated to me has been tremendous and working together. I took time to then think about things and look at our team, look at Auston, myself, everything as a whole and try to be very, you know, just try to be very aware, process of where things were at," Tavares said. "It just made a lot more sense and felt more and more right to me as time went on, as I thought about it and through my conversations with Tre."

Tavares, Matthews and the rest of the Leafs will begin Training Camp next month before opening the exhibition season with a matchup against the provincial and divisional rival Ottawa Senators on September 22 at Scotiabank Arena.

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