Young Leaf calls out his team and continues to make a strong case for the “C.”

While star forwrd Auston Matthews is without a doubt the odds-on favorite to eventually take over as the Toronto Maple Leafs captain in the near future, another young player has been showing his leadership qualities this season.

On more than one occasion it has been defenseman Morgan Rielly who has appeared to be the leader of this club and once again this week he publicly challenged his team to do better. While Riely was content with the confidence level from his fellow players, he felt they had very little to be happy about in their most recent stretch of games.

"The confidence is there. We have lots of confidence in our group, we don't have a lot to be proud of right now," Rielly said as per Craig Hagerman of The Score. "We have two outings that didn't go our way and we're not very happy with so, if anything, we have that much more motivation going into a big game against a team within the division. There's no reason to start getting concerned, it's just a matter of trying to get our focus back and make sure we know what to think. Just get playing our game again."

These comments are likely to make head coach Mike Babcock very happy, and if Rielly continues this trend Matthews receiving the "C" in the future may not be a done deal.