Toronto Maple Leafs: Morgan Rielly Is Worth Every Year and Penny

The Toronto Maple Leafs fans have a pathetic tradition where they employ group-think and a mob-mentality to gang up on a player and try to run him out of town.

This wouldn’t be so bad, but the Toronto Maple Leafs fans guilty of doing this never seem to pick the right player.

Jake Gardiner and Pierre Engvall were players who took criticism out of sheer ignorance. 

Oh he’s six-five and doesn’t play like you think someone that big should play? He must be terrible.  Except he’s not and it’s embarrassing.

This constant negativity really sucks, and what’s worse, it’s now being deployed against Morgan Rielly, the absolute last guy who deserve any crap.

Toronto Maple Leafs Fans Need to Lay of Morgan Rielly

First of all, Rielly takes heat for being on the ice when goals are allowed, but this is mostly confirmation bias and bad luck.  Other than Justin Holl, Rielly has the lowest on-ice save percentage of any defenseman on the team.  Despite that, he’s winning his minutes.

The Toronto Maple Leafs win when Rielly is on the ice, even this year where he’s been injured and then struggled slightly to get up to full speed upon his return.

With Rielly on the ice this year, as always, the Leafs get more puck-possession, they take more shots, get more scoring chances and score more goals than their opponents.  Expected Goals are also in Rielly’s favour.

As they always are.

In fact, Morgan Rielly’s numbers this season (his on-ice 5v5 numbers, i,e the numbers that matter) are more or less exactly where he is every single season. The only difference this year is that he is not crushing the results, which is because he has a PDO under 100 for the first time in six seasons.

Even with the injury and recovery, Morgan Rielly’s play has been extremely consistent.  Not surprising, because the people who come up with these narratives are never right.  That doesn’t stop them though.

Out of ten seasons, this is his 4th highest points-per-minute of 5v5 ice time season, scoring at a rate of 1.09 points per 60.  Of the Leafs regular defenseman, he scores the most by far.

Rielly is an elite offensive player and a bad defensive player.  This has been true for ten years. He is incredibly consistent and worth every penny of his contract.  He is a legitimate #1 defenseman whose team always wins when he is on the ice. (stats naturalsattrick.com).

Yes, he once scored 20 goals, but that was a total fluke year when his shooting percentage went superhigh and he was just lucky.  This year he’s been equally unlucky, shooting under 3%.

He is also this team’s heart and their leader.  He may not wear the C, but don’t kid yourself, he’s the de facto captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He’s their longest serving member and just. because he doesn’t throw big hits doesn’t mean he doesn’t bring a bucket-load of intangibles that make him worth every penny and every year of his deal.

It might be trendy to knock him these days, but it sure ain’t intelligent.  He is 8th in the NHL among defenseman in first-assists per minute.

He is one of the best Toronto Maple Leafs players of all-time, and is 23rd in team history in scoring, and 5th in defenseman, soon to pass Ian Turnball for 4th.   You would think the majority of fans of an Original Six team would be sophisticated enough to love this player despite his flaws. Apparently, you’d be wrong.