After Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe sat down and evaluated how the defense has performed, there was one change that was clear — Cody Ceci wasn’t working on the first pairing.
As Keefe came in as the new head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs — right away he told Morgan Rielly and Tyson Barrie that they’d be starting games together. It was imperative that they start the games off strong, and get the team going.
That trend continued, and it even turned into both players coming on while there was an offensive zone face off. Fast forward to a few days ago — a Rielly-Barrie pairing is now real.
“We’re looking forward to the challenges that are coming,” says Rielly regarding him and his new defense partner, “we want to make it work — I think we both said that, so were gonna keep talking and keep trying to improve.”
It’s a big hill to climb for Rielly, who has been on the ice for almost half of the goals scored on the Toronto Maple Leafs. He’s not struggling with point production though — on pace for 55 points (2nd most points in a season in his career).
The issue was not that Rielly and Ceci weren’t performing decently well together, which they were. On ice together, the pair generated more scoring chances for (191) than against (181) at five-on-five (all stats from Natural Stat Trick).
It was how Rielly was performing away from Ceci. There was a slight increase in five-on-five SCF% by almost 2% without Ceci, but the other numbers are staggering.
With and without, Cody Ceci.
Being paired with Ceci, the two had an xGF% of 48.90. And after moving away from Ceci, the 25-year-old’s xGF% shot up to 54.26%, which is a substantial increase.
It’s not all about the offensive numbers though as Rielly is more focussed on not allowing goals in the back of his own net.
When asked what him and Barrie are going to work on, Rielly laughed and said, “everything,” then added that work is needed in the “defensive zone and not letting them (other teams) score.”
He did say though that his and Barrie’s style will stay the same. Keefe is allowing them to play freely and carry the puck, if they wish to.
If they can work together in the defensive zone — this pairing might just last for the rest of the season. But it’s all depending on whether or not they generate shots and goals in the other teams end, and not their own.
It’ll be interesting to watch, that’s for sure. Two run-and-gun style players hoping to be better in the defensive zone together. As it may take some time, this could be one of the changes that put the Toronto Maple Leafs back on their feet.