Auston Matthews faces a major leadership question after Craig Berube's Mitch Marner admission

Auston Matthews was called out by Craig Berube when he said Mitch Marner was Toronto's emotional leader and needs to prove he's the right guy to lead the team.

There's been a lot of turnover for the Maple Leafs since last summer, that's for sure. Mitch Marner is out of town, half the roster is gone in favour of new faces, Gavin McKenna is now part of the fold, and the front office and coaching staff was completely overhauled with John Chayka put in charge.

But it was all done in an effort to come back from the worst season of the Auston Matthews era, and while it was a lot of moving pieces that caused those issues, the loss of Marner was a huge hit - something that Berube touched on earlier this offseason.

Craig Berube named Mitch Marner, not Auston Matthews, as Toronto's emotional leader

Berube explained that the loss of Marner meant the team was suddenly without their 'emotional anchor' and that the team lacked their heart and soul, which led to things being so incredibly lifeless last year.

He didn't call out Matthews directly, but given that he is the captain of the team and locker room leader, we could read between the lines:

I thought Mitch was the energy. He brought a lot of energy and emotion to the game I thought; on a nightly basis, in practice. He was a very vocal guy, chatted on the bench. He was great, I really enjoyed coaching him - we lost our emotional leader for sure.

That's not to say that Matthews isn't someone who is vocal, but compared to Marner he's a lot quieter. To be fair to Matthews, he was injured last year and it came at a time when the team had no passion or fight left, and you could see the lack of emotion from everyone the second he went down.

Berube seemed reserved to his fate last season without Marner, tried to make it work with his players and it failed. That's certainly not just Matthews' fault though.

Matthews has to prove he's the right leader to fill Marner's void

But as the captain, he does need to prove to everyone that he's the right guy to lead. Obviously the captain job was already his, but we can't discredit how much work John Tavares is still doing to lead. Matthews has to take initiative now, and besides being a vocal leader on the ice - has to be one off of it too.

The best way for him to do that is to start appearing in front of the media a lot more, win or lose. A lot of the time, the team decides to hide Matthews away after a bad game or a tough loss and even when he does talk, it's very to the point and straightforward.

Adding some passion and nuance into his comments would go a long way, and telling it straight will give the Maple Leafs fans a lot more confidence in him being a leader. If he can take accountability when he has to, then we can see that he genuinely cares about the future of the team.

That alone would give him a huge leg up over Marner, who seems to avoid the cameras at every turn, especially when things go south.

As the captain and undisputed leader of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Auston Matthews' job is to ensure that both his team and the fans have confidence in his ability to be the one to lead them to glory - because it might be one of his last chances.

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