Player Discussion Morgan Rielly

[diceman934]

Last 5 years Regular Season:

Games Played, 285, 46th overall
P/GP, 0.730, 9th overall
TOI, 23:09, 28th overall
PP TOI, 2:51 23rd overall
PPP, 72, 14th overall
ESP, 132, 11th overall
GWP, 42, 7th overall
OTP, 11, 8th overall
P/60 all situations, 1.891, 11th overall

Playoffs:

Games Played, 32, 44th overall
P/GP, 0.750, 7th overall
G, 8, tied for 4th overall
A, 16, tied for 12th overall
P, 24, 10th overall
TOI, 24:19, 20th overall
PP TOI, 3:28, 7th overall
PPP, 4, tied for 17th overall
ESG, 7, tied for 2nd overall
GWG, 2, tied for 3rd overall
P/60 all situations, 1.850, 5th overall

I can appreciate people being disappointed with Rielly's defensive game. I'd ask them to remember the rotating cast of partners he's been asked to play with over the years. And, questionable goaltending that we have received during much of that period. He is not a defensive stalwart. However, imo if you look at the above numbers and then try to argue he is an overpaid 3rd, or even a low ranked 2nd defenseman, all I can do is shake my head in disbelief.

I know right. He is playing like a number 1 and getting paid like a 2/3 he has took two home town discounts and yet is still attacked. He has been underrated by Leaf fans.

 

[diceman934]

Morgan making a huge push for a roster spot on team Canada. He is playing great

 

[wingman75]

Morgan making a huge push for a roster spot on team Canada. He is playing great

Feels like the defensive guys we have brought in have freed him up a little. If he can get back to bringing some extra offence from the backend, it's going to make a massive difference.

 

[MilkofthePoppy]

Been having a great season. Should be captain.

 

[Roo]

He was off to a rocky start this season but has improved his play of late.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

It's almost like people were being slightly(highly) irrational about his play early on. Guy that has been a soldier for us for like a decade and a portion of this fanbase was frothing at the mouth to shit all over him on a moments notice.

 

[1specter]

It's almost like people were being slightly(highly) irrational about his play early on. Guy that has been a soldier for us for like a decade and a portion of this fanbase was frothing at the mouth to shit all over him on a moments notice.

I expect nothing less from this place.

 

[ITM]

What boggles my mind is that the people putting down Rielly are the same ones praising Tanev and OEL.

Rielly is hands down the best defenseman on this team. It's not even close. That statement will remain just as true for the foreseeable future as it is now.

Do I wish the Leafs had a better number one defenseman than Rielly?

Hell yeah I do. I wish they had three or four defensemen better than Rielly. But Treliving botched the blueline rebuild.

So Rielly remains the number one defenseman on the team.

That's not about to change any time soon either. Because Treliving also signed all those guys for the duration of the Matthews contract. So barring a significant trade to bring in an upgrade over Rielly this is as good as it gets.

He might not be the best there is but he's the best they got.

Curious as to how.

 

[Maple Leaf]

It's almost like people were being slightly(highly) irrational about his play early on. Guy that has been a soldier for us for like a decade and a portion of this fanbase was frothing at the mouth to shit all over him on a moments notice.

Yea the Leafs have been very successful with Rielly leading the charge

 

[Jojalu]

Yea the Leafs have been very successful with Rielly leading the charge

You can be a great player on a lousy team just as easily as being a horrible player on a great team.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

Yea the Leafs have been very successful with Rielly leading the charge

Point so wildly over your head it isn't even funny.

 

[Community]

Yea the Leafs have been very successful with Rielly leading the charge

Yeah, the player who is easily our playoff MVP over the course of the Matthews era is definitely the reason we haven't been successful in the playoffs! I'm going to spell this out one last time for everybody who complains about Rielly and/or blames him for our lack of success.

Regular season pace over 82 games since 2016/17 (beginning of Matthews career):
- Matthews: 94pts
- Marner: 91pts
- Nylander: 72pts
- Rielly: 56pts
- Leafs: 3.46 goals per game

Career playoff pace over 82 games (aka since 2016-17):
- Matthews: 72pts (-22)
- Marner: 72pts (-19)
- Nylander: 65pts (-7)
- Rielly: 58pts (+2)
- Leafs: 2.63 goals per game

The Leafs playoff goal scoring per game is only 76% of their regular season average. While scoring goes down league wide, the following comparison still works since its based on the same decrease. If everybody was equally to blame for our offense faltering you'd expect their production to be:
- Matthews: 71pts
- Marner: 69pts
- Nylander: 55pts
- Rielly: 43pts

Matthews and Marner are severely underproducing in the playoffs to date and their production drop is almost directly tied to our overall offensive drop-off.

Nylander is underperforming his regular season pace; however, it is far less than our overall drop in offense which points to him being worse in the playoffs than the regular season to date, but not nearly as bad as the rest of our team.

Rielly is slightly outperforming his regular season pace in the playoffs and MASSIVELY outpacing his expected point totals (35% higher) based on the entire team's reduced offense. He is also the best +/- with a +14 despite the team being a -21 in that same timeframe.

 

[ACC1224]

Yeah, the player who is easily our playoff MVP over the course of the Matthews era is definitely the reason we haven't been successful in the playoffs! I'm going to spell this out one last time for everybody who complains about Rielly and/or blames him for our lack of success.

Regular season pace over 82 games since 2016/17 (beginning of Matthews career):
- Matthews: 94pts
- Marner: 91pts
- Nylander: 72pts
- Rielly: 56pts
- Leafs: 3.46 goals per game

Career playoff pace over 82 games (aka since 2016-17):
- Matthews: 72pts (-22)
- Marner: 72pts (-19)
- Nylander: 65pts (-7)
- Rielly: 58pts (+2)
- Leafs: 2.63 goals per game

The Leafs playoff goal scoring per game is only 76% of their regular season average. While scoring goes down league wide, the following comparison still works since its based on the same decrease. If everybody was equally to blame for our offense faltering you'd expect their production to be:
- Matthews: 71pts
- Marner: 69pts
- Nylander: 55pts
- Rielly: 43pts

Matthews and Marner are severely underproducing in the playoffs to date and their production drop is almost directly tied to our overall offensive drop-off.

Nylander is underperforming his regular season pace; however, it is far less than our overall drop in offense which points to him being worse in the playoffs than the regular season to date, but not nearly as bad as the rest of our team.

Rielly is slightly outperforming his regular season pace in the playoffs and MASSIVELY outpacing his expected point totals (35% higher) based on the entire team's reduced offense. He is also the best +/- with a +14 despite the team being a -21 in that same timeframe.

Some interesting stuff there.

Maybe I’m missing something but if Matthews and Marner were worse in the regular season would their playoff numbers now be good? If Nylander was better in the regular season would his playoff numbers now be bad?

 

[Aashir Mallik]

Some interesting stuff there.

Maybe I’m missing something but if Matthews and Marner were worse in the regular season would their playoff numbers now be good? If Nylander was better in the regular season would his playoff numbers now be bad?

It’s all relative to expectations I think, but yea it would be

If they weren’t as good players, then we wouldn’t expect as much. Inversely, nylander isn’t/hasn’t been as good, so his totals seem better because expectations are lower

If Matthews and Marner were 70 point regular season players, they’d:
A) be paid less
B) be worse players
C) expected to produce what they do now

If nylander was a 90 point regular season player he’d:
A) be paid more
B) be a better player
C) expected to produce more than he does now

For nylanders case we are now living that scenario as he makes 11.5 so 65 point paces in the playoffs won’t cut it.

 

[Community]

Some interesting stuff there.

Maybe I’m missing something but if Matthews and Marner were worse in the regular season would their playoff numbers now be good? If Nylander was better in the regular season would his playoff numbers now be bad?

We can add in production vs Caphit if you'd like... definitely not a perfect stat, but its just another example that shows Rielly is performing better than the other big 3 in the playoffs, especially relative to expectations (I've added both contracts for Nylander).

Matthews: 185k/point
Marner: 154k/point
Nylander: 162k/point or 108k/point
Rielly: 130k/point

Can't compare this to low wage players as it gets wonky with just 1 or 2 less/more points, but it gives a little bit more information to compare high caphit offendive players.

Nylander at 7m/yr was doing decent, however, that's not the case anymore and his playoff production needs to be better now to justify his caphit. There's no reason Matthews, Marner, or Nylander should be producing less (or even similar) relative to their caphit than one of their defensemen getting paid substantially less than them (3.5m - 5.75m less). And in this example Rielly's production per caphit is 20-40% better compared to everybody's current contract. This is supposed to be elite franchise forwards vs a top pairing (which many somehow argue against) offensive defenseman.


Edit: Above post goes over it pretty well too. I'll also add that, give our lack of playoff success, our players get paid based on their regular season stats.

If they were worse in the regular season, they wouldn't be worth their contracts and I wouldn't complain about their playoff performance if they were making 6-8m/yr. However, we're expecting them to be those same players and they haven't been.

I just did a very quick look at the following elite offensive players in the league (McDavid, Draisaitl, MacKinnon, Kucherov, Crosby, and Pastrnak) and the biggest drop off in production was 10% while Matthews and Marner are closer to 30%.

I'm a huge fan of both Matthews and Marner, but they're one of the biggest reasons for our playoff failures to date. Goaltending could've been overcome many years if these guys produced 10-20% more (which still would've been worse than most stars compared to their regular season).

 

[mclaren55]

He has literally had slow starts the past 3 or 4 years. He takes a month or two to get going typically. Everyone jumping on this guy a few games into the season already. Jesus.

Huh, wow, who would have thought....

Keep talking shit about our #1D guys, it's a great look every year.

 

[Maple Leaf]

Yeah, the player who is easily our playoff MVP over the course of the Matthews era is definitely the reason we haven't been successful in the playoffs! I'm going to spell this out one last time for everybody who complains about Rielly and/or blames him for our lack of success.

Regular season pace over 82 games since 2016/17 (beginning of Matthews career):
- Matthews: 94pts
- Marner: 91pts
- Nylander: 72pts
- Rielly: 56pts
- Leafs: 3.46 goals per game

Career playoff pace over 82 games (aka since 2016-17):
- Matthews: 72pts (-22)
- Marner: 72pts (-19)
- Nylander: 65pts (-7)
- Rielly: 58pts (+2)
- Leafs: 2.63 goals per game

The Leafs playoff goal scoring per game is only 76% of their regular season average. While scoring goes down league wide, the following comparison still works since its based on the same decrease. If everybody was equally to blame for our offense faltering you'd expect their production to be:
- Matthews: 71pts
- Marner: 69pts
- Nylander: 55pts
- Rielly: 43pts

Matthews and Marner are severely underproducing in the playoffs to date and their production drop is almost directly tied to our overall offensive drop-off.

Nylander is underperforming his regular season pace; however, it is far less than our overall drop in offense which points to him being worse in the playoffs than the regular season to date, but not nearly as bad as the rest of our team.

Rielly is slightly outperforming his regular season pace in the playoffs and MASSIVELY outpacing his expected point totals (35% higher) based on the entire team's reduced offense. He is also the best +/- with a +14 despite the team being a -21 in that same timeframe.

Alright let's run it back again

 

[seanlinden]

Alright let's run it back again

Just because somebody argues that Rielly isn't the problem, doesn't neccessarily mean that they're suggesting to run it back.

Based on that analysis (which is great work BTW), it's Matthews & Marner who's production is taking the massive nosedive come playoff time, which of course contributes to the general concept of the Leafs being unable to score.

If anything, that argument probably suggest that the Leafs should move on from Marner; and use that cap space better.

At the end of the day, Morgan Rielly's $7.5m makes him the 27th highest paid defenceman in the league right now. If we take a somewhat basic "you get what you pay for" and the Leafs want to be considered a "strong" defensive team... you'd need:

1 defenceman who's in the top 16 of AAVs ($8.3m or higher)
1 defenceman who's in the top 48 ($6.25m or higher)
1 defenceman who's in the top 80 ($4.5m or higher)
1 defenceman who's in the top 112 ($2.5m or higher)

Adding another $7-8m defenceman would make this team's blueline go a long way.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1855422604187713911

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1855422042222322144

 

[arso40]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1855422042222322144

While playing as our 2/3 he’s looked better

 

[TheBeastCoast]

People need to go hand up on the Mo takes early on. Don't make a fuss about it. Just do it.

 

[blue stick]

Reilly has been great lately. And he's also a helluva good actor!

 

[Dough72]

so a really good defenceman is playing like a really good defenceman. For like the 12th year in a row. Who possibly could have seen this coming.

 

[notDatsyuk]

For nylanders case we are now living that scenario as he makes 11.5 so 65 point paces in the playoffs won’t cut it.

Last two playoffs Matty and Mitch have produced at a 77 point pace. Willy produced at a 71 point pace, with 15-20% less ES ice time and not much more than half the PP time. He also led the team in goals, PP goals, and GWG, and was tied with Matty for most ES goals.

Whose "point paces in the playoffs won’t cut it"?