There’s a pretty long list of offensive defencemen that Maple Leafs fans have blissfully chased out of town. Jake Gardiner, Larry Murphy, and Bryan McCabe are prime examples of that but players like Tomas Kaberle were not without their detractors as well, and John Klingberg…well…what I can say, sometimes running players out of town is justified.
When it comes to Toronto’s complicated relationship with offensive defencemen talking about Morgan Rielly is given. He’s been able to maintain a Kaberle-like longevity in Toronto and most people seem to have accepted that there will be some defensive trade-offs that come with Rielly in order to get the offensive results that have historically outweighed the defensive shortcomings.
The 2023-24 season was another example of that Morgan Rielly is never going to be what people want him to be defensively. You can hold out some hope that Craig Berube is magically going to be the coach that puts it all together, but Torey Krug and Justin Faulk provide evidence that is wishful thinking.
Rielly’s defensive shortcomings can be overstated because there are some things he does very well in the defensive zone. When he is put with a partner that is stationary in front of the net, Rielly is an effective defensive zone rover applying pressure to the opposition while the net is left well-protected. His ability to move the puck out of the defensive zone is something that more often gets attributed to his offensive abilities but the ability to skate out of trouble and having the vision to find outlets that allow Toronto to maintain control are important. At the same time, it is amazing how Rielly seems to make the wrong call on every odd-man rush against him.
The offence story for Morgan Rielly is more complicated as well. Rielly is a decent powerplay option and moves the puck well as a quarterback on the top unit, but he is somewhat redundant when William Nylander and Mitch Marner are filling similar roles. Rielly’s lack of a booming point shot will always leave Toronto wanting and looking for options to replace him. Somehow the Leafs found Tyson Barrie and John Klingberg to be those guys even though their point shots are equally ineffective.
Rielly’s real offensive strength comes at 5v5 and having him on the ice with one of the Leafs’ top two lines lends itself to the fast breakouts the Maple Leafs frequently enjoy and one of the best puck-cycling groups in the league. While I can appreciate the desire for a 100 mph point shot, Rielly’s play works best with the core they have.
Knowing that what I’ve said about Morgan Rielly very much applies to most of his time in Toronto it is worth considering how the Leafs can make the most of this going forward and recognize that Rielly’s next season as a Maple Leaf will likely feature him with a new partner.
In the regular season, Morgan Rielly primarily played with TJ Brodie, but once Ilya Lyubushkin arrived on the Leafs he seemed to take over the role of Rielly’s partner. Lyubushkin and Brodie are very different in that Brodie thrives on positional play while Lyubushkin is more of a physical presence, but the overlap likely comes in the shot-blocking capacity. Brodie is far more capable of aiding Rielly in the puck movement and in previous seasons his hockey sense was a tremendous value, but it was more of a hindrance in 2023-24 and is what opened the door for Lyubushkin. It will be interesting to see if the Leafs go with the Lyubushkin/Schenn/Polak approach to partnering with Rielly or if they will attempt the Brodie/Hainsey/Hunwick strategy that has been used frequently as well. No matter what the goal should probably be to find someone who matches Brodie’s talent of previous seasons and continue to play Rielly with a partner who belongs in a top pairing as his play seemed to suffer in the playoffs.
For what it is worth, the numbers seem to benefit the Lyubushkin approach. Even though a playoff round is a small sample size it was against what we know was tough competition. As much as there was more to ask from Rielly in the series, the numbers aren’t bad. The other notable switch for the playoffs was that Rielly wasn’t matched to competition. His time was fairly evenly divided between Marchand’s line and Pastrnak’s and even saw time away from them both. As the Maple Leafs explore solutions to their blueline part of that approach might be reducing the risk of having Rielly against elite forwards.
Despite John Shannon’s recent opinion about whether or not Morgan Rielly should be back, Morgan Rielly will certainly return to the Maple Leafs. He still is playing at a high level and on a blueline full of problems, Rielly is a bright spot who understands his role. Accountability and effort have never been issues for Rielly and the longest-serving Leaf has never been part of the problem. Rielly comes with limitations like most players do and the Maple Leafs need to adapt to those. Bringing in John Klingberg last summer was a sign that the new GM didn’t understand the issues with the Leafs blueline and the drop off from TJ Brodie only amplified concerns last year. Brad Treliving’s improved understanding of Morgan Rielly after the past season will likely lead to better decisions this summer.
Data from Natural Stat Trick
