Toronto Maple Leafs: Morgan Rielly Is Better Than You Think
Morgan Rielly is an important member of the Toronto Maple Leafs young core, who doesn’t get enough credit.
Most fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs would agree that Morgan Rielly is an important piece of the young core in Toronto. The 5th overall pick in 2012 has already played four seasons and 312 regular season games in the NHL. Because of this, we often forget that he is still only 23 years old. He plays a key role on the team’s blue line and plays extremely tough minutes for a young defenceman.
Rielly has taken some undue criticism over the past year for not taking the next step in his development. Fans and media are overlooking how good he has really played for the team, especially given his age and role.
To fairly evaluate Rielly I will take a closer look at his career so far.
Zone Starts, Minutes and PP/PK Usage
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Most young defencemen enter the league playing a sheltered role for their team. This has absolutely not been the case for Reilly. Throughout his time with the Maple Leafs, the club has been consistently bad defensively. Under Randy Carlyle, the Leafs played a horrendously bad system, with very little focus on team defense. Before last season, the only other notable defenders to play for the Leafs over that time have been Dion Phaneuf, Jake Gardiner, Carl Gunnarsson and Cody Franson. Wow, being a Leaf fan has been tough. Being a young defenceman on the team has been even tougher.
Rielly spent most of the last season paired with NHL rookie, Nikita Zaitsev. I think Zaitsev is a legitimate top four defender, but he does not complement Reilly’s style of play. Unlike most young defenders, Reilly has never been paired with a true shot suppressor. In a previous piece, I discussed the possibility of a Rielly-Hainsey pairing next season. Although Hainsey is not an elite top pairing defender, I believe his style could compliment Rielly’s game.
Since entering the league in 2013-14, Morgan Rielly has been tasked with playing incredibly tough minutes for the Maple Leafs. Last season, he averaged over 22 minutes of ice time per game and started close to 56% of his shifts in the defensive zone. He played very little power play time and killed penalties regularly. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a young developing defenceman.
Morgan Rielly’s Injury
He also suffered a high ankle sprain midway through the season, sidelining him for six games. This type of injury does not usually heal quickly. Rielly’s skating ability is the strongest element of his game and the injury clearly affected him when he was reinstated into the Leafs lineup.
Despite playing injured, Rielly continued to play tough defensive minutes against the other teams best players.
Comparing Morgan Rielly To His Peers
When you move away from using the ‘eye test’ alone you can see that Rielly has performed quite well. Looking at his HERO chart, he matches up very close to an average #2 defender and just below the archetype of a true #1. His offence and his ability to generate shots are at an elite level, with his shot suppression coming in slightly below a traditional top pairing guy. When you consider the challenging minutes he plays and the quality of partners he has had up to this point, you start to understand how impressive these numbers are. You can check out his HERO chart.
When you compare Rielly to NHL defencemen from his draft year you get a more accurate evaluation of his abilities. Both watching him play and looking at his advanced defensive metrics show he has performed much better than Ryan Murray and Cody Ceci. His numbers are very similar to those of Matt Dumba and Jacob Trouba. What makes this more impressive is the fact that both of these players are surrounded by much stronger defenders and have played much softer minutes to this point. Hampus Lindholm is the only defender from Rielly’s draft year that has outperformed him to this point. Lindholm has a massive advantage here, playing on arguably the strongest defensive team in the NHL since he entered the league.
Morgan Rielly: The World Championships & the World Cup
Rielly has played a lot of top pairing minutes for the Leafs. Amazingly, he has never had a true top pairing partner to play with. The exceptions being for Team Canada at the 2016 World Championships and with Team North America at the 2016 World Cup. Rielly played some of the best hockey of his career during these tournaments, finally getting the opportunity to play with a strong partner.
With Team Canada, Rielly paired with Chris Tanev to make up the team’s best shutdown duo. Just like with the Leafs, Rielly played tough minutes against the other teams best players. Tanev is one of the best shot suppressors in the NHL. This gave Rielly the support he needed to excel at such a high level.
We saw Rielly reach that same level of play at the 2016 World Cup. He started the tournament on the top defensive pairing with Aaron Ekblad. After Ekblad left the lineup due to injury he played primarily with Colton Parayko. Parayko, like Tanev, is a strong defender when it comes to shot suppression.
When given support in a top pairing role, Rielly has proven to be a very good defender. He is capable of playing against the other teams best players in all situations of the game.
Conclusion
Rielly is not perfect and definitely had his ups and downs last season. Most of his struggles can be attributed to the difficult defensive role he has been asked to play, combined with a lack of support to help him carry that burden.
When Rielly is paired with a legitimate top pairing defender he is a very good player, it’s time he gets the credit he deserves. As Toronto’s defence continues to grow and get stronger, Rielly will too.
*Stats and information from NHL.com, frozenpool.dobbersports.com, ownthepuck.com, hockey-reference.com