Toronto Maple Leafs Need to Trade Morgan Rielly This Offseason

The Toronto Maple Leafs need to trade Morgan Rielly this offseason.

With the fifth overall draft pick in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, the Toronto Maple Leafs hit the jackpot by selecting Morgan Rielly. The Edmonton Oilers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Montreal Canadiens and New York Islanders all missed the boat by selecting Nail Yakupov, Ryan Murray, Alex Galchenyuk and Griffin Reinhart, instead of Rielly.

For 572 career games as a member of the Leafs, Rielly has been nothing but great. He was the cornerstone of Toronto’s defense during a dark time and has been the team’s number-one defenseman, during the Auston Matthews Era.

He gave Toronto hope during a rebuild and has continued to give his best effort every night.

Although he’s a wonderful person and a great hockey player, it may make more sense to trade him before he hits free agency.

Smooth skating defensemen are very attractive during free agency and there’s going to be a team that pays a ton of money for Rielly. As a UFA last year, Tory Krug signed a seven-year deal worth $6.5 AAV. Rielly is not only younger than Krug was when he became a free agent, but he’s arguably a better player.

If Krug can get that on the open-market, there’s no reason to believe that Rielly won’t be asking for a minimum of $7M per season.

Leafs Should Sadly Trade Morgan Rielly This Offseason

Signing Rielly to a contract worth $7M per season would be a bad decision. If you’re going to spend that type of money on a defenseman, you need to getting a number-one defenseman who can play 30 minutes per night and eat up crucial minutes in crunch-time.

When I think of Rielly, I don’t think of him as a player who can double-shift every game in the playoffs and help drive the offense, while defending at a world-class level as well. Rielly is a very good defenseman, but at best, he should be the second-best player on a Stanley Cup team.

His game resembles someone like Kris Letang, but he’s not as offensively-gifted as him. Rielly did score 20 goals and compile 72 points during the 2018-19 season, but that’s a rarity. That was a career-year for him and it’s not something you can count on every year, or ever again.

Instead, a typical season would be between 6-10 goals, 40-50 points, and nothing more. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but you shouldn’t be backing up the Brinks Truck for him, based on that production. Especially when you can trade him now and get an asset in return.

The Leafs need a legit number-one defenseman, who they can parade out every night and eat up a ton of minutes. Fortunately, there’s one player out there right now that can do that and his name is Dougie Hamilton.

Toronto should find a way to trade Rielly right now and land Hamilton instead because he’ll be a much better fit for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Hamilton is going to cost way more than Rielly, but that money spent would be well worth the investment, compared to Rielly.

Although it’s tough to think of Rielly playing anywhere else than Toronto, feelings needs to be thrown out the window when it comes to upgrading your hockey team. If Rielly is the piece that helps land Hamilton, the Leafs need to make that deal immediately.