Toronto Maple Leafs: The Search for a #1 Defenseman

It’s no secret to anyone who watches the Toronto Maple Leafs on a regular basis that the team needs some help on the blueline.

The Toronto  Maple Leafs number one pair (Morgan Rielly and Nikita Zaitsev) are struggling every night. At the beginning of this season, there wasn’t any debate as to which of the three pairs was the weakest of the blueline – obviously the pair of Matt Hunwick and Roman Polak raised more than a few eyebrows quite often throughout this season.

So to see the Leafs so-called top pair struggling as they have as of late does not bode well for the future. While the Leafs seem to have their number-one defenseman established in Rielly, it doesn’t necessarily mean he is one just yet.

So I took a Twitter poll to see what Hockey Twitter’s thoughts were:

The  consensus was that the Toronto Maple Leafs do not have a number-one defenseman at the moment, at least according to the 16 people who voted. It’s a very small sample size, yes, but still nearly ten of the responders didn’t think Rielly was the team’s top guy.

Now, it’s probably not fair to just write Rielly off right now. He’ll be 23 in a couple of weeks, and although he’s probably a veteran on this extremely young Leafs team, he’s nowhere near his prime yet. It will probably take a few more years for him to fully develop.

Kris Letang of the Toronto Maple Leafs?

When Kris Letang was 22 years old (2009-10 season), he finished the year with 3 goals, 24 assists, and 27 points in 73 games played. He didn’t hit his prime until he was around 27 or 28. That year, he posted a career high in points (67) in 71 games in 2015-16.

Rielly’s ’22-year old’ season is this season, and he currently has 3 goals and 19 assists, good for 22 points in 55 games. Those are two very similar seasons, for two players who play very similar styles of hockey, at the exact same age.

With that in mind, I posed yet another question to Hockey Twitter:

This poll received more votes, and it was quite a bit closer than the first one. Most seemed to feel that Rielly wasn’t ever going to live up to his role on this team. Thankfully, there were some who seemed slightly more optimistic about Rielly’s future. He might not develop into his full potential. It,. however, is not  fair to write him off as of yet.  Defensemen do take longer to develop their game.  At least according to an old hockey cliche.

If Rielly doesn’t become a number-one defenseman, it’s not the end of the world. How many true, bonafide number one defenseman are actually in the NHL? There are a few, but not every team has one. Give Rielly some time to adjust being this team’s top guy before you lose faith in him and start wanting the Leafs to draft another defenseman or trade assets away to replace him. At very least, he’ll be a good number two guy.

But for now, I think he is the Leafs number one guy.

All stats  from Hockey-Reference.com.