Toronto Maple Leafs: Morgan Rielly and His Potential

Morgan Reilly was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs 5^th overall in 2012.

Standing 6’ 1”, and weighing 217 lb, Morgan Rielly has been playing defense for the Toronto Maple Leafs since 2013/14.  Heading into his 6th season, he already has 388 career NHL regular season games under his belt.  In five seasons with the Leafs, Rielly’s never played fewer than 73 games in a season, and his career points total is 31 goals and 140 assists, for 171 points in 388 games.

Last year was outstanding in terms of offensive production.  He had a career best year with 6 goals and 46 assists (52 points) in 76 games.  Remarkably, with only the exception of the season prior (2016/17), where Babcock really made Rielly hone his defensive skills, Reilly has always managed to increase his offensive production year after year.

This article analyzes Morgan Rielly and his hockey career thus far, and assesses his potential.  The stats that I’ve referenced so far came from https://www.nhl.com/player/morgan-rielly-8476853.

Rielly’s draft year adversity

In 2012, playing in the Western Hockey League for the Moose jaw Warriors, Morgan Rielly was putting up points at a point per game pace before an injured knee threatened to derail his career.

In 2011/12, Rielly had 3 goals and 15 assists in 18 games before being injured.

Thankfully, the Toronto Maple Leafs saw potential in him and his recovery, so he was selected 5^th overall, and has gone on to have an excellent NHL career.  The year after being drafted, Rielly lit up the WHL with 12 goals and 42 assists (54 points) in 60 games.  Great numbers when you consider that Rielly is a defensemen, not a forward.

What has Morgan Rielly done so far?

In the five years Morgan Rielly has played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, he’s helped them qualify for the playoffs twice.

A look at Rielly’s deeper statistics available on hockey-reference.com (https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/r/riellmo01.html) shows that before head coach Mike Babcock took over, Rielly hit more, however other teams frequently out-shot the Leafs while he was on the ice at even-strength.

In the three years since head coach Mike Babcock took over, that trend has reversed.  Morgan Rielly went from 2 consecutive seasons of being below 50 % corsi to 3 seasons in the positive (i.e., above 50%).  The exact corsi percentages in the last 5 seasons were:

45.1% (2013/14),

48.6% (2014/15),

50.6% (2015/16)

50.4% (2016/17)

51.6% (2018/18).

Notice that his possession metrics follow a similar trend to his offensive production in that Rielly consistently gets better every year. Last year Rielly was one of three players, along with Drew Doughty and Victor Hedman, who played against top competition, posted 50 + points and was a positive possession player, relative to their team.

With five years experience in the NHL already, it’s easy to forget Morgan Rielly is only 24 years old, and that he still has a lot of runway left to takeoff and develop into an even better player than the elite offensive minded defensemen we’ve seen so far.

Last season was an incredible one for Rielly, made more so if you looks at the WOWY stats (with you, without you).  Whenever Rielly got on the ice without his normal partner, Ron Hainsey, his stats skyrocketed, hinting at what he can be if the Leafs ever find him a better partner.

Thanks for reading!

Questions: What’s your favorite Morgan Rielly moment?  If you were the GM, would you make Rielly the captain, why or why not?  Who would be the perfect right handed defensemen to partner with Rielly from either inside or out of the Leafs organization?

other stats naturalstattrick.com