Toronto Maple Leafs: 3 Players Due For a Bounce Back in 2024

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Morgan Rielly #44 of the Toronto Maple Leafs skates with the puck against the Florida Panthers (Photo by Joel Auerbach/Getty Images) /

#2-Morgan Rielly

Morgan Rielly’s disappointing regular season was overshadowed by his strong playoffs, where he was arguably one of the Toronto Maple Leafs best players.

In the 2023 playoffs, Rielly had 4 goals (which tied his entire regular season output), and 12 points, which were second on the entire team.

Weirdly, a lot of the credit for his rejuvenation went to Luke Schenn, but that was highly likely to have just been a coincidence.

Schenn is a fine player, but he’s a borderline NHLer at this time in his career, and it was far more likely that Rielly was just healthy for the first time all season, and that Schenn was there to benefit (and after three years of being forced to sign single-season deals, Schenn surely did benefit from Rielly’s play, perhaps more so than ever Rielly himself).

Last regular season, Rielly had only had 4 goals and 41 points in 68 games. Again, those aren’t bad by any means, but Rielly can do better, especially considering he had a very strong 10-goal, 68-point season as recently as 2022.

Last season, the Toronto Maple Leafs only won Rielly’s minutes by a single goal, and his Expected Goals Rating was about even. This is down from Norris-Level heights in 18-19 when the Leafs won 60% of Rielly’s minutes, and his Expected Goals Rating was 59%

No one expects Rielly to get back to that level, but surely he can do better than he did last year, where he was barely more than a replacement player at even-strength.

Bet on MO Rielly bouncing back.

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