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Auston Matthews was going to be named the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2019 but an off-ice incident stopped the team from moving forward with it.

During the 2019-20 season training camp, news spread throughout the Leafs team that Auston Matthews was facing a disorderly conduct charge from an incident that occurred in his hometown of Scottsdale, Arizona.

«The Leafs had designs on making Matthews the captain in 2019, but a brush with the law in an off-season, off-ice incident in his hometown of Scottsdale, Ariz., resulted in Tavares getting the ‘C’ in his second year as a Leaf,» Hornby wrote on Monday.

Auston Matthews jerseys with the “C” on them appeared to have been for sale at Winners during that time as everyone was getting ready for the announcement that never happened, when it was ultimately given to John Tavares to avoid a PR nightmare. There were a lot of jerseys that were made prior to the news breaking out of this incident, so all of the overstock of Matthews captain jerseys were sent to discount stores to liquidate them at a fraction of the cost.

The charges against Auston Matthews were ultimately dropped but Leafs management had to reconsider the captaincy decision and felt they couldn’t give it to a player involved in a media fiasco, so the decision to give it to John Tavares in his second year with the club was made.

Auston Matthews is about to begin the first season of his new four-year deal that he signed worth $53 million, which will be the highest among all NHL players. He is coming off a career high 69 goal season and will look to build on it.

It is expected that an announcement will be made on Wednesday where Auston Matthews will be retiring the “A” on his jersey and replace it with a “C”, which would make him the first ever American born captain in the Maple Leafs franchise history.