Breaking down the Toronto Maple Leafs 2024-25 Blue-Line

Morgan Rielly

The 5th overall pick from the 2012 draft is going to turn 31 this season. Morgan Rielly is behind only Borje Salming and Tomas Kaberle at this point, in terms of being the best Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman of the post-expansion era.

Rielly's 472 points put him 15th in the history of the franchise, 48 points behind Kaberle and 3rd for defenseman overall. He's likely not going to be a hall of famer, but if the Leafs win a cup he'll likely end up right on the verge just like Kaberle. Not quite hall material, but it's not ridiculous to think he might be good enough in a league that thought to enshrine Jeremy Roenick.

Rielly's game is based on skating, intelligence and his elite ability to move the puck. He might not be as great as he once was, but he's aging nicely and is coming off a very good season. 138 defenseman played over 1000 5v5 minutes in the NHL last year, and Rielly scored at the 15th highest rate.

Last season, Rielly has his 8th straight season with a positive corsi - he drives play and makes his team have the puck more when he's on the ice. The Leafs scored 51% of the shots and 54% of the goals when he played. One slight warning sign: for the first time since the Leafs were a garbage non-playoff team, Rielly was under 50% in expected goals percentage, however he was only at 49%.

In his best seasons, the NHL's best defenseman, Cale Makar, is between 56-61% expected goals, numbers Rielly has never touched, but that should give you an idea of what the best defenseman in the NHL can do. Clearly, the Toronto Maple Leafs do not have an elite number-one top-of-the-league defenseman.

One caveat, however. Rielly might be slightly better than we think because last year he was partnered with TJ Brodie and Brodie's game fell off big-time. Rielly could see one of those rare late career improvements we usually only see on ex-Leafs when he teams up with Tanev, but we can't exactly count on that.

Nothing against Rielly, he's great, but he's not an elite player. and he's starting to slip. This is bad news for the Leafs because Star Players are so important in the NHL that a team would be better off with Cale Makar and five replacement players than they would be with no superstar but six above average players.

Because the Leafs don't have a Top Dawg, like Makar, Adam Fox, Dougie Hamilton, Charlie McAvoy or Mikko Heiskanen they are already at a disadvantage when it comes to building their blue-line.