Toronto Maple Leafs: Morgan Rielly Can Win The Norris

Toronto Maple Leafs‘ defenseman, Morgan Rielly will win the Norris Trophy.

In the history of the NHL, the Norris Trophy has never made its way to Toronto. There have been a couple of former Toronto Maple Leafs who won the Norris, but they won it when they were playing for another franchise. Red Kelly won the Norris in 1954. In the 1990s, Brian Leetch won it twice. Unfortunately, neither defenseman won the award during his days in Toronto. Leetch won it while he was with the New York Rangers and Kelly won it while he was with the Detroit Red Wings.

History will change this season though. A Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman will finally hoist the Norris Trophy over his head.

Last season, Rielly was one of the best defensemen in the NHL. In 76 games played, he registered 6 goals, 46 assists, 25 PP, 21:36 ATOI, 48 hits, 84 blocks, 34 takeaways, 6.8 point shares (PS) and a 51.4 CF%. His goal, assist, PP, PS and CF% totals were all career-highs.

He was also one of only three defenseman to play against top competition, score 50 points and post a positive possession rating.  The other two were Victor Hedman and Drew Doughty.

As long as Rielly doesn’t stumble backwards and continues to progress, he will raise the Norris Trophy at the 2019 NHL Awards Ceremony in Las Vegas, Nevada.

What Numbers Will Rielly Need To Get The Norris?

Since the 2009-10 season, there have been quite a few different Norris Trophy winners. Duncan Keith, Nicklas Lidstrom, Erik Karlsson, P.K. Subban, Drew Doughty, Brent Burns and Victor Hedman have all taken home the award.

After staring at hockey-reference.com and my MacBook Pro’s calculator, I’ve figured out the average goals, assists and point share numbers for the Norris Trophy winners mentioned above. The average amount of goals scored by a Norris Trophy was 16, the average amount of assists was 46 and the average amount of point shares was 11.3.

If you look at Rielly’s totals from last season, he wasn’t close but wasn’t far off. He met the average for assists, but was a tad behind in goals scored and point shares.

This season will be different. In this past off-season, the Toronto Maple Leafs added John Tavares. Tavares and Auston Matthews will likely be on the same power-play unit and could possibly be playing with Rielly. You’d have to figure if Mike Babcock chooses to put Tavares, Matthews and Rielly on the same unit, that the Toronto Maple Leafs will have the best power-play unit in the NHL. With the three possibly together, that will definitely increase all three’s point totals.

In addition, Rielly will now also have many opportunities to play with Tavares at even strength. With the Toronto Maple Leafs landing the big kahuna in free agency, you can expect a great year for Rielly. The only thing Rielly is missing to take him to the next level is  a solid partner.  Ron Hainsey dragged him down all last year, and the Leafs have yet to upgrade this position.

However, with cap space and many assets with which to potentially make a move, it is just  a matter of time before this happens.  A solid partner for Rielly will make the difference and vault him into the upper echelon of NHL defensemen.

While I believe that Rielly will win the Norris Trophy, there will be plenty of competition. Hedman, John Klingberg, Karlsson,, Shayne Gostisbehere, Doughty and Oliver Ekman-Larsson will all put up a solid fight. Yet, Rielly will prevail and steamroll the competition. He is part of one of the best teams in the NHL and will have plenty of opportunities to capitalize each and every night.

stats from NHL.com and hockey-reference.com, corsica.hockey