He was, without a doubt, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ best player in the playoffs last spring.
Morgan Rielly powered his way to 12 points in 11 games, including a four-assist Game 2 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. He scored four goals. He averaged a team-high 24 minutes per game. The Leafs thrashed the Lightning and Florida Panthers, their first- and second-round opponents, 13-4 at five-on-five when Rielly was on the ice.
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A year before that, Rielly scored three times and added three assists in a seven-game first-round loss to Tampa Bay.
Put it all together and Rielly has collected seven goals and 18 points in his last 18 playoff games.
Playoff Rielly is a thing.
Rielly knows it. He’s trying to be that guy more often for the Leafs, not just in next spring’s postseason but before that in this regular season as well.
“It’s an everyday kind of thing,” Rielly explained toThe Athletic recently. “In practice even and during those games, it’s, OK, what do I need to do to be successful? What was making me successful before? That’s what I need to do.”
So what, in Rielly’s estimation, made him so successful? What was the key to Playoff Rielly?
To start with, Rielly says, he used his feet. He leapt into the rush on the regular and frequently involved himself in O-zone activity. He was active and assertive that way. He played with pace. He was calculated in his risk-taking.
He also aggressively shot the puck. He let it rip with no hesitation, attempting 49 shots in 11 games. He scored big goals by simply getting the puck on net.
He wasn’t doing that in the regular season. Rielly went the first 35 games without scoring a goal and rarely shot the puck at all, especially on the power play. “I certainly want to get back more shots,” Rielly said. “They don’t have to be in the net every single time.”
It was only a few seasons ago that Rielly nearly set the franchise record for goals by a defenceman, scoring 20 on almost 500 shot attempts. (Only three NHL defenders attempted more: Brent Burns, Dougie Hamilton and Roman Josi.)
Last season, Rielly attempted only 242 shots in his 65 games and scored just four times.
He spent a lot of time pondering that over the summer. He watched the video of goals he had scored in recent seasons, looking for clues on what made him successful.
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For one thing, he noticed that a fair number of the goals came from the right side of the ice.
That meant getting there from his usual spot on the left, which “takes some movement and timing,” Rielly said. “But also when that (opportunity) comes, being able to bury it.”
Rielly’s shot chart from last season, with very few looks from the right side. (Evolving Hockey)
Rielly incorporated his observations into his offseason training.
He worked on getting his shot off quicker. He fired it from different points on the ice.
“I tried to do a lot more slap shots, half slappers, not looking at the puck, keeping your head up, being a bit more deceptive,” Rielly said. “And then also catching and releasing on that left side and taking one-timers from the right side.”
Another clue he gleaned from the video work: The puck left his stick in a hurry, including on one-timers. “It’s not really like a slap-shot one-timer,” he said. “But it’s like a quick release one-timer.”
That’s what really stuck out for me in looking back on his 20-goal 2018-19 season (and in recent playoffs, more generally, for that matter): The puck came his way and he put it on net. He didn’t hesitate.
In 2018-19, Rielly led NHL defencemen with 20 goals. (Dan Hamilton / USA Today)
I wondered if that was partly due to the fact that the puck just seemed to sail in any time he did let it rip: Rielly sizzled with nine goals in his first 20 games that season. In other words, did he become more shot-happy because the puck was going in the net?
“Oh yeah,” Rielly said. “Once it starts going, you start shooting with more confidence. You’re just more decisive. When it’s not going, you’re thinking, you’re looking back side, you’re looking for tips, you’re looking for stuff.”
That reluctance seemed to leak into his game before the playoffs last season, especially on the power play.
Rielly is pass-first by nature, “and I don’t think that’s always the best.”
“There was times last year and even the year before where I think I was turning down shots,” he said of his work on the power play in particular, “and I don’t want to do that quite so much.”
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That’s at least part of what led the Leafs to replace Rielly on PP1 with the more shot-happy John Klingberg to start the season. Sheldon Keefe previously bumped Rielly off the top unit for Tyson Barrie and even an untested Rasmus Sandin in the playoffs years back.
Rielly has gone along with it every time.
“I certainly want that role,” Rielly said of running point on the top unit. “It isn’t that I don’t want it. But I believe in our group and being completely on the same page. If there’s an opportunity for a player to come in and build his game and help the power play and help his confidence and play important roles for us, and that means that other people have to change their roles, I think that those people should be willing to do that.”
In other words, if it helps Klingberg gain steam and it helps the team, Rielly is for it. The Leafs’ longest-serving player hopes it sends a message that way.
“It’s not about me, but I think that when other people are willing to adapt and change their roles or take less, whether it’s ice time or whether it’s on a contract or whether it’s on anything, I think that has to be loud and clear to the teammates, that you pick up on that,” Rielly said. “That the entire goal here is to win together. And if that means changing your role or changing anything, then you have to be willing to do so.”
In the meantime, Rielly will run point on PP2 while looking to become more like the active participant in the offence he was in the playoffs and in previous regular seasons.
He played almost tentatively during last year’s regular season.
The Leafs scored 90 five-on-five goals when Rielly was on the ice in the 2021-22 season. Last year, it was 46 in 65 games. The expected goals number was actually a tiny bit better last season, but the Leafs generated fewer shots, shot attempts and scoring chances.
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Part of the dip was injury-related.
Rielly suffered a left knee injury in mid-November, missed 15 games, and came back looking and feeling not quite himself.
That was the other thing about the playoffs: Rielly felt great. He looks that way early this fall, too. Rielly collected a pair of assists in a weekend win over the Minnesota Wild, including a dart that Calle Järnkrok cashed in. It was precisely the kind of sequence that made Rielly such a force in the playoffs.
He led the break confidently into the Minnesota zone, dished it off and then played QB from the corner when the puck came his way again.
Mo & Calle need some love for this one 🤌 pic.twitter.com/yvUVkEY0Qt
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) October 15, 2023
While Rielly has attempted 13 shots in the first three games this season and hasn’t scored yet, the Leafs also do need him at his absolute best defensively, what with all the question marks behind him on the back end. They’re asking him and T.J. Brodie to guard top lines this season. It’s a role that Rielly has absorbed here and there over the years with a variety of partners and varying degrees of success.
He and Luke Schenn were the Leafs’ best defensive pair by a long shot in the postseason, heavy-duty work that saw them facing off against stars from Tampa Bay and Florida.
Not unlike seeing the puck go in the net on offence, Rielly said positive defensive results also tended to snowball. “Once you start feeling confident, trusting your instincts, trusting your reads, it becomes more natural. When you’re struggling, it’s hard to find that.”
Fewer power-play minutes has led to increased five-on-five opportunity in the early going: Rielly is averaging 18.5 minutes in the discipline through three games after garnering less than 17 a game last season. He’s up over 23 minutes per game overall.
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No defenceman will see the ice more with Auston Matthews this season. That’s not by accident: The Leafs want the offensive engine of their defence playing lots with their best player.
A lack of power-play time may put a dent in Rielly’s overall production this season — though if he can incorporate more shooting, more activity on offence, more Playoff Rielly,the Leafs should get what they need.
Rielly says he’s not quite as hung up on his numbers as he was when he was younger. But he added, “I would be lying if I said I don’t care at all. I want to produce, because that’s part of (my) job. I want to score, I want to produce, I want to be effective on the power play. But on this team in particular, there’s more to it, I think, for me than just producing. Typically when you’re playing well, or when I’m playing well and I’m involved, that just kinda starts to happen.”
(Photo: Mark Blinch / NHLI via Getty Images)
Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Reference, and Evolving Hockey
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
