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Toronto Maple Leafs: Morgan Rielly Deserved Better

By James Tanner

TORONTO, ON - OCTOBER 15: Toronto Maple Leafs Defenceman Morgan Rielly (44) puts the brakes on during the NHL regular season game between the Los Angeles Kings and the Toronto Maple Leafs on October 15, 2018, at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, ON, Canada. (Photograph by Julian Avram/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - OCTOBER 15: Toronto Maple Leafs Defenceman Morgan Rielly (44) puts the brakes on during the NHL regular season game between the Los Angeles Kings and the Toronto Maple Leafs on October 15, 2018, at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, ON, Canada. (Photograph by Julian Avram/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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No Toronto Maple Leafs player has ever won a major NHL Award.

A Toronto Maple Leafs player has never won the Norris, Vezina or Hart Trophies.

At least, not since the League expanded beyond six teams.

Since then, Pat Burns won the Jack Adams, Alex Mogilny won the Lady Big, Jason Blake won the Masterson, Doug Gilmour won the Selke and Auston Matthews won the Calder.

While impressive, no one really cares about the coach of the year, the best defensive forward or the rookie of the year.

There are five NHL awards that matter – the Stanley Cup, the Conn Smythe, The Norris, the Hart and the Vezina – and the Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won any of them in modern times.

Rielly Was Robbed

That should have ended this year.

Morgan Rielly was the best defenseman in the NHL this year, and he deserved to win the trophy.

Disgracefully, he wasn’t even nominated.

Rielly was the first NHL blueliner since 2013-14 (Erik Karlsson) to score 20 goals and 50 assists in the same season.

His 20 goals and 72 points were good for the league lead in goals by a defenseman, and second in total points.

More impressively, he led the NHL in 5v5 points (for a defenseman).

Had the Leafs power-play not suffered a luck-based shooting-percentage dip that held them off the scoresheet for what seemed like half of a season, Rielly would easily have earned the overall points total.

What’s more, is that Rielly was really held back by his partner in a way that no other candidate was.

Rielly played about 1000 minutes with Hainsey, and about 400 minutes without him.  Here are the stats:

W/ Hainsey:  50% Corsi, 47% Shots, 58% of Goals, 48% Expected Goals.  

Without Hainsey: 55% Corsi, 52% Shots, 61% of Goals, 53% Expected Goals

The fact is, Morgan Rielly had a Norris worthy season while spending over two-thirds of his time with one of the worst players in the NHL. (Stats from naturalstattrick.com).

In the nearly one-third of the time when he was paired with literally anyone else, his performance skyrocketed.

In Ryan Stimson’s fantastic book Tape to Space: Redefining Modern Hockey Tactics, he cites research that proves a player’s teammates have 5x more influence on his play than the competition.

There is simply no way to explain away the fact that Ron Hainsey took the bottom out of Morgan Rielly’s game.  It’s not game situations, quality of competition or coaching.  The fact is, Hainsey was extremely over-matched where the Leafs deployed him, and Rielly still put up Norris numbers.

I’m not sure the voters gave this the proper weight when deciding to hand out the Norris Trophy. The fact is, Rielly played most of his minutes a player who significantly depresses his stats, and still put up Norris worthy numbers.

To say he was robbed doesn’t quite cover it.  Perhaps this is the most egregious misrepresentation justice in human history.

Breaking Down the Norris Candidates. dark. Next

Ok, haha, maybe not.  But he is still the rightful Norris Trophy winner, and he would be within his rights to storm the awards show stage in June and take it on himself to award the trophy to its’ proper owner.

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