Morgan Rielly is getting some long-overdue shine in the All-Star spotlight (2024)

It shouldn’t have taken this long for Morgan Rielly to become an NHL All-Star.

It’s five years too late, really.

Rielly was leading all NHL defencemen in goals (13) and points (44) when All-Star rosters were announced on the second day of 2019.

He didn’t get in.

The fans took care of that this time around, giving Rielly the first-time nod in his 11th NHL season — at home in Toronto this week, appropriately enough.

“He’s got so many great years here, that I think he should’ve gone to a couple already,” teammate Mitch Marner said of Rielly’s All-Star creds.

“It means a lot,” Rielly said of the honour. “But it’s like I’ve always said, you can’t do anything without your teammates, and I just feel grateful to be a part of this group and have the teammates that I do.”

Rielly’s numbers aren’t quite as splashy as they were around the midway point of that 2018-19 season, but 40 points in 47 games still puts him seventh in scoring among his NHL peers on the back end this season.

What really sticks out about his season to this point for the Leafs is just how much of a burden he’s shouldering at both ends in every game. Not only is Rielly, almost literally, the only source of offence from the team’s crew on defence. He’s also being asked (again) to tussle with top lines nightly alongside a declining TJ Brodie in what’s really not the ideal use of his skillset.

First, the offence.

The Leafs still score a lot of goals — almost 3.5 per game, good for eighth overall — thanks in large part to Auston Matthews, Marner, and William Nylander (another first-time All-Star this season). That makes it easy to overlook Rielly’s part in the process, especially in contrast to everyone else on the back end.

Consider this: The Leafs rank 29th among the NHL’s 32 teams in the percentage of points (22.8 percent) that come from their defence, and 30th in the percentage of goals (9.9 percent).

What they do get is Rielly’s terrific production: 40 percent of those points and 44 percent of the goals.

Rielly’s 40 points are more than the next three Leafs defenders combined— Jake McCabe, Brodie, and Timothy Liljegren have 37 altogether.

Rielly has chipped in with seven goals. Everyone else on defence in Toronto has combined for nine.

Rielly is the easily most reliable defender for propelling the Leafs up and out of their zone, too, whether it’s running it out himself or shooting it into the hands of the forwards, as a sample of data collected by Corey Sznajder this season shows:

Nobody on the Toronto back end generates scoring chances quite like Rielly, who can be a real menace when he puts his legs and vision to work:

That data doesn’t represent the full season, and the Leafs are spending more time defending this season than they did in years past. But you hardly even need numbers to know who’s powering the Leafs offensively on the back end (Rielly) – and who’s not (everyone else).

A non-shooter at times in the past, Rielly is notably firing the puck a lot more so far this season – more than 13 attempts per 60 minutes, the most, by a fair bit, in years. (He could still stand to let it rip more on the power play.)

That was part of Rielly’s preseason plan for carrying over his top-shelf playoff performance into the regular season.

Rielly is logging more minutes than ever before, a career-high 24 and change per night. Only the Islanders’ Noah Dobson has logged more time nightly at even strength, period, in the NHL so far this season.

A huge chunk of those minutes have seen Rielly facing off against top lines.

Beginning with the days he spent alongside Matt Hunwick when the Leafs were bottoming out, Rielly has spent most of his Leafs career guarding that kind of talent. Which is odd for someone who’s never been known for his defensive play, and it speaks to the issues this team has had on defence.

It was only when the Leafs had Jake Muzzin around that they could siphon off some of that responsibility from Rielly’s plate.

But the Leafs are winning on the scoreboard when Rielly is out there at five-on-five (45-42) and while you might raise an eyebrow at the team’s expected goal number with Rielly out there (47 percent), a closer examination suggests that he’s been dragged down by the third and fourth lines.

The third line, led by Max Domi, has often struggled to get out of its own zone. The fourth line, led by David Kämpf, has struggled to do much of anything at the other end.

What’s especially odd, though, is the Rielly-Matthews minutes not being anywhere near as dominant for the Leafs this season.

Is that because of Brodie’s noticeable decline? Is it because of Marner’s mostly sluggish (until recently) first half? Is it part of the domino effect of having a weaker lineup, up front and on defence? Is it partly about Rielly being overburdened in his role? Is it all of the above?

It’s worth wondering what kind of lift, if any, Rielly might get from a partner who’s better equipped than Brodie, at this stage in his career, to handle heavy minutes. For years and years, the Leafs searched for the right partner for Rielly. They finally found it in 2020 with Brodie in free agency.

This is the final year of that four-year deal.

The Leafs are no longer definitively winning the Rielly-Brodie minutes like they used to in what would appear to be a Brodie-plus-team-related falloff.

Would a Rielly-Chris Tanev partnership lead to loftier results? What kind of bump might Rielly (and his ability to create offence) get if the Leafs could send more of the toughest minutes elsewhere, and if he wasn’t lining up for so many defensive zone draws – the 18th-most at five-on-five of any NHL defencemen this season?

Rielly has taken only three minor penalties in those spots in spite of all that.

He’s on pace for 12 goals and 70 points this season, not quite the career-best 20 and 72 he ended up in that All-Star-less 2018-19 season but not far off either. Rielly finished fifth in Norris Trophy voting that season, arguably his best — still — as a Leaf. It’s hard to imagine him getting, or deserving, that kind of Norris love this year, given how crowded the field is.

An All-Star nod, though, at the first All-Star week in Toronto in 24 years, was overdue.

“Being right here in Toronto, I think it’s very fitting,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “He’s done so much for this organization. He’s been so committed to helping our team find success. He’s having such a great year.”

(Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference, and Allthreezones)

(Top photo by Andre Ringuette / NHLI via Getty Images)

Jonas Siegel is a staff writer on the Maple Leafs for The Athletic. Jonas joined The Athletic in 2017 from the Canadian Press, where he served as the national hockey writer. Previously, he spent nearly a decade covering the Leafs with AM 640, TSN Radio and TSN.ca. Follow Jonas on Twitter @jonassiegel