All teams know it doesn't matter who's the C. Dion Pahneuf was the C for f**ks sakes. That right there tells you that only the fans care who the C is; the internal team itself doesnt give a flying f* who the C is. Most of the team wants to win the cup and none of them give 5 sh*ts which one of them have a C or an A on their sweater LOL... Tavares of Matthews it doesn't matter neither of those two guys are anywhere near captain material in respect to what the NHL calls a captain. In the day a Captain had to be a vocal tough guy... today a captain just has to be a soft baby... so I take it back maybe Mathews IS the guy in 2024 standards
I'm gonna assume you haven't played a lot of competitive sports? The players definitely care about the captaincy. More so than the fans.
Also funny you mentioned Dion Phaneuf as an example of a terrible captain and in nearly the same breath state that a captain should be a "vocal tough guy"... which is exactly what he was. Goes to show that maybe your premise is flawed. Unless you think guys like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Nicklas Lidstrom, Scott Niedermayer, Maurice Richard, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos were bad choices for captain despite being the opposite of your description. That's just naming a few, and they all lead their teams to the cup, most on more than one occasion.
You'll also be hard pressed to find a franchise level talent that wasn't the captain of their team unless there was another franchise level talent on the roster who already held the title.
Captaincy is about accountability, pride, leading with your play, setting an example for young players, and yes, in many cases, being the guy you look to for the big play in the big moments. Is Matthews that guy to a tee? Not yet. You hope that starting with accountability will naturally lead to some of the other qualities. This is an investment in Matthews growth as much as anything else. We'll go as he goes.