There have been a lot of changes to the Leafs blueline this offseason, in general, bolstered by an infusion of veteran talent. To an extent the upgraded blueline is all the rage, powering much of the Leafs overall improvement. Newcomers Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson have deservedly earned appreciation for their contributions. To that point, Jake McCabe has also earned praise, benefiting from the stellar support that Tanev provides. To an extent, the surprising Conor Timmins also has found himself in the good books of most fans, transforming himself from a potential waiver candidate to cementing a regular spot in the Leafs top six.
Amidst it all is the longest-serving Leaf, Morgan Rielly. Once the new kid on the scene and the Leafs great hope, Rielly is no longer the recipient of such fanfare. In the same vein, Rielly is not posting career highs in goals and points either. Somehow, Rielly has found himself as a fairly unsung contributor for the best Leafs blueline of the salary cap era, if not longer. Make no mistake, Rielly is still deserving of credit as a major reason for the Leafs success. Let’s take a close look at how Rielly is being deployed under new head coach Craig Berube and how he is helping the Leafs to their strong record so far this season.
Rielly profile
As the longest-tenured current Leaf, almost all of Leaf Nation is quite familiar with Rielly’s game. An offensive defenceman with a refined and cerebral skillset, Rielly does a lot of his best work with subtlety. Rielly is not the most dynamic skater or shooter in the league, hardly the most daring or prolific dangler either, yet he is consistently able to help his team move the puck. When the time is right Rielly can still pull off an incredible toe drag, saucer pass, or wrist shot, but as his career has progressed he is much more careful picking his spots. There is a quiet confidence just as much as there is an indisputable level of quality.
All the same, Rielly is not a one-dimensional player either. While not nearly punishing or physical enough to be a net-front bouncer, Rielly does have enough strength to be impactful in his own end. He has the skating and the defensive stick to defend in transition. Perhaps most of all he has the wisdom to know when to sit back. While Rielly is not a regular penalty killer, and is often paired with a defence partner who can help with in-zone defending, there is still something to work with.
Most of what would be considered Rielly’s defensive contributions come from moving the puck out of his own zone effectively, as he is often saddled with a partner who cannot contribute in this area. In recent seasons the Leafs have often been forced to make a trade deadline deal for a physical right-shot defenceman, Luke Schenn and twice Ilya Lyubushkin. While these players were seen as necessities for the Leafs lineup as a whole, particularly as penalty killers, the truth is that these defencemen needed Rielly to be effective at even strength much more than he needed them.
Again, Rielly is not a penalty killer, and he does appreciate some in-zone physicality, but the pairings only worked because of how smart and effective Rielly is with the puck. Defensive stoppers require partners who can create zone exits off of their turnovers. This is why Schenn and Lyubushkin posted much better results with the Leafs than they have been able to since leaving.
What’s the plan?
There was a clear plan heading into the season to play Rielly with Tanev. To some extent, this was an obvious choice, in theory giving Rielly by far the best defensive partner of his career. Tanev is a high-end defensive defenceman, even earning some consideration for a very competitive spot on the right side of Team Canada’s Four Nations Faceoff roster. Tanev routinely brings out the best in his partners, and there was legitimate hope that Rielly might play the best hockey of his career alongside.
At least for now, this is not the direction that coach Berube decided to go. Instead, we have seen a similar pattern as to how Tanev was used by the Dallas Stars last season after acquiring his rights in a trade. Tanev did not play with Miro Heiskanen, instead joining Esa Lindell on a shutdown defensive pairing. Of course, having a shutdown pairing is a luxury any coach would enjoy, but a big part of this decision is due to Tanev’s fairly rare skillset as a passer given his defensive attributes. It is true that Rielly is not a good shutdown option, but Tanev simply does not need a puck mover like Rielly to be effective in the same ways that Schenn or Lyubushkin do.
Purely from an individual standpoint, it would have been nice to maximize Rielly by pairing him and Tanev together, but the truth is that such an effective shutdown pairing is an even more useful tool for Berube. There will likely be some lineup shuffling as the season goes on, but the deviation from the plan is in no part due to a failure on the part of either Rielly or Tanev as much as it is about their strengths and successes.
Who fits with him?
With that said, Rielly is still a huge piece of the Leafs program. For now, he finds himself with a rotating cast of partners for the most part. In a sense, this has been more of the status quo. Both Jani Hakanpaa and Philippe Myers are bigger, limited, defensive options. Like Schenn and Lyubushkin before them, Hakanpaa and Myers are right-shot defencemen who need a puck-moving left shot to survive at even strength. While this might seem like treading water, at the very least the Leafs have these options built in to start the season as opposed to trading for them at the deadline once again.
It should also be noted that the Leafs depth is improved, meaning the burden on Rielly and his partner is lessened to a significant degree. Heading into the playoffs last season the Leafs had McCabe with Simon Benoit and Joel Edmundson with Timothy Liljegren behind Rielly. Neither pairing is anywhere close to what McCabe and Tanev have been, perhaps even what Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Timmins are capable of. Even if Hakanpaa and Myers are not as good as Schenn and Lyubushkin, Rielly is much better equipped to succeed.
The truth is that Rielly succeeded anyway. In some ways, he has even been the Leafs most consistently strong playoff performer. As he has aged the doubters have started to project his decay, even declaring it in full swing given his lack of regular season production.
What does the future hold?
Nevertheless, Rielly continues to produce when the stakes are highest, often thrown to the wolves with a huge role and a defence partner that relies on him to be useable. Like all of us Rielly is getting older, but he is the youngest of the Leafs top four defencemen. If his teammates are an indication of how a high-end defenceman can age then Rielly still has a lot of good seasons left. It will be a challenge to age as gracefully as Ekman-Larsson and Tanev.
Ekman-Larsson does provide a strange example, formerly an offensive presence akin to Rielly. Through injuries, his career was derailed, but Ekman-Larsson reinvented himself into a more defensively minded and physical player. Rielly might not be forced or able to make the same adjustments, but together the duo have made for a good pairing while deployed together this season. Perhaps then the Leafs will look to add another left shot to play alongside Timmins if they are looking to upgrade. Benoit versus Myers is the question for now, and essentially the Leafs will have the flexibility to acquire a left or a right shot if they are looking to upgrade later this season.
