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Morgan Rielly

Morgan Rielly literally trades on being a good normal dude with some minor playoff pop in a room led by a boy band that's even worse in the playoffs.

The guy is out of shape and came to play Game 7 like someone trying out Tough Mudder for the first time. Completely gassed at the 18 minute mark, 2 minutes into the first period.

The man weighs 225 pounds and I don't think you'll find any game footage of him making a hit, winning a one on one battle or even being able to clear the net front or pin a guy along the boards.
I was looking at his statistics in teh playoffs and I was actually pleasantly surprised, he goes from .59ppg to .69ppg, from .1gpg to .22gpg.

But the defensive lapses are too much, it sucks we didn't get Tanev much earlier, he was exactly what we needed for a long time
 
I like Rielly as a person and will always cheer for him, unlike the two bozos Mitch and Auston, but yeah he needs to go. I do wish him well and think he has the attitude to bounce back, but stuff like this has happened way too much with him, he probably could use a fresh start for himself.

That is the thing, maybe Rielly is too nice of a person, he needs to develop a mean streak or add some prickness to his game.

I belong to the same wine club as Rielly in Yorkville, where we have lockers to store our wine, and have facilities to have dinner and taste the wines. I've been there a few times where Rielly and his group were there at the same time. Each time he was always friendly and open to chatting with the other members. Appears to be a really nice and well mannered human being. Maybe too nice to be a playoff warrior?
 

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How would we replace Rielly? Rielly himself is a mediocre #1 and we don't have anyone close to being able to step into a #1 role and not be seriously miscast.
 
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How would we replace Rielly? Rielly himself is a mediocre #1 and we don't have anyone close to being able to step into a #1 role and not be seriously miscast.
when you've played less than Benoit the last two playoff games are you really a number 1.

Go rewatch his presser before Game 6, he's COOKED mentally, he's seen too much.

How many years have we said "can he play with Reilly". That isn't a number 1, that's a deeply flawed player. I love"d" Morgs, but I'm done with this stiff, he has zero poise when it matters, he is terrible defensively, kind of the point for a D man. He isn't even on PP1 anymore, we wouldn't miss him at all.
 
It is unfortunate as Rielly seems like a decent human being unlike some of the other passengers here... but Tree needs to play hard ball here. Worst case, he makes his money as the captain of the Marlies. We still have to take the hit but he needs to eat the humble pie that comes with it.
 
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Moving on from 44 will guaranteed not be a problem at all.
The Leafs would have to retain salary, id imagine. He has 5 years left, He makes 8 million next year, then 6 million in the final 4 years. I dont think they are lining up for him at this point. Reilly can possibly have a better year next year but he needs to lose 10-15 pounds. He doesnt need that extra weight in the corners because he is useless there, but he is losing his foot speed and needs to counter that with less weight to push or get into better shape.
 
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Time to go
I honestly think they gotta do it. Like, how do they get this guy off the roster?

I feel if they could easily let him go, they would do it. But what's continually stopping them is the big cost in letting him walk—i.e., they are going to have to retain on his contract to get rid of him. But I think it's at the point where they seriously gotta consider eating $2.5M a year on his deal or even buying him out. That's how bad this guy is.
 
Hey, Oilers fan here. You guys were my team in the east though. Sucks the way it ended for you.

Kinda surprising to see so many of you want to get rid of your best offensive D in Rielly. I felt like a lot of your issues against the Panthers stemmed from your D (the defensive guys everyone here seems to love) being unable to move the puck cleanly through the Panthers aggressive forecheck. We had the same issue against them last year.

Funny to see the weight comments though, he is a lot beefier than I remembered from a couple years ago lol.

Lastly, im seeing the "we'd have to retain to move him" comments, and it makes me wonder how receptive you'd be to a deal for Darnell Nurse? He's our "no one would want this contract" Dman, so it has me curious. Maybe we retain to close the gap in salaries somewhat, or add, idk, more so just think each guy could be maybe improve a bit with a team swap, and fit the teams wants a bit better. Nurse gets a bad wrap, but he isn't a "passenger" but rather quite a good leader, and plays the game you guys seem to be going for, but can put up more pts than anyone else on your blueline(besides rielly). I won't lie, I was a big hater of his last year (especially playoffs) but he has been much better this year for the most part, though he still has moments where he turns his brain off.
 
11th in scoring amongst all Dmen over the last 4 years including this year and a player who appears to increase offensive production come playoff time absolutely will get offers from other teams for his full cap hit, if he was made available..

the biggest issue with us moving Mo is that we were already one of the worst defenses in terms of offense in the league and removing Mo makes that significantly worst. so if you remove him who are we replacing him with?
 
Hey, Oilers fan here. You guys were my team in the east though. Sucks the way it ended for you.

Kinda surprising to see so many of you want to get rid of your best offensive D in Rielly. I felt like a lot of your issues against the Panthers stemmed from your D (the defensive guys everyone here seems to love) being unable to move the puck cleanly through the Panthers aggressive forecheck. We had the same issue against them last year.

Funny to see the weight comments though, he is a lot beefier than I remembered from a couple years ago lol.

Lastly, im seeing the "we'd have to retain to move him" comments, and it makes me wonder how receptive you'd be to a deal for Darnell Nurse? He's our "no one would want this contract" Dman, so it has me curious. Maybe we retain to close the gap in salaries somewhat, or add, idk, more so just think each guy could be maybe improve a bit with a team swap, and fit the teams wants a bit better. Nurse gets a bad wrap, but he isn't a "passenger" but rather quite a good leader, and plays the game you guys seem to be going for, but can put up more pts than anyone else on your blueline(besides rielly). I won't lie, I was a big hater of his last year (especially playoffs) but he has been much better this year for the most part, though he still has moments where he turns his brain off.
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11th in scoring amongst all Dmen over the last 4 years including this year and a player who appears to increase offensive production come playoff time absolutely will get offers from other teams for his full cap hit, if he was made available..

the biggest issue with us moving Mo is that we were already one of the worst defenses in terms of offense in the league and removing Mo makes that significantly worst. so if you remove him who are we replacing him with?
The problem is his defensive play is abysmal.

We sheltered him as much as possible, 3rd pairing, beside a big strong guy and he was still awful.

Somebody can post advanced stats, but was he even a net positive?
 
The problem is his defensive play is abysmal.

We sheltered him as much as possible, 3rd pairing, beside a big strong guy and he was still awful.

Somebody can post advanced stats, but was he even a net positive?
most offensive Dmen are not great defensively and don't need to be. yes Mo wasn't good this year but he's been fine defensively in the past considering his Offensive production. so I wouldn't move him this year without seeing if he can bounce back. because again there really is no one in UFA that plays his type of game capable of putting up 50-60 points from the back end that we desperately need. a guy who can jump up into the play to create odd man rushes as we have no one else.

Edit: and like I said we were already one of the weakest offensive team from the blue line.
 
The problem is his defensive play is abysmal.

We sheltered him as much as possible, 3rd pairing, beside a big strong guy and he was still awful.

Somebody can post advanced stats, but was he even a net positive?

Screenshot 2025-05-20 at 11.28.45 AM.png


This is why the Benoit/McCabe praise is hilarious.

Even with Rielly being "trash", he still outperformed most.

Most people who want changes want the Leafs to win 1-0, no defensive mistakes but 0 offense either.
 
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*Barely outperformed in sheltered minutes at 7.5 mill*

How sheltered were his minutes based on QoC and zone starts?

I already know zone starts, and it isn't like he is crazy sheltered, assuming 1-2 less Dzone starts compared to the players with heavy deployments.
 
Oh my gawd I somehow never realized he was signed until 2030.

I can't believe he's 31, I feel like he's slowed down more than JT, I thought he was closer to 35.

Are we realistically moving him for anything of value in a place he'd be willing to go? The only thing I can think of is he might be willing to go home (Canucks) and maybe we could add a small sweetener to take someone like Tyle Myers off their hands, who's signed until 27? But I think he has a no trade clause too, so probably not, but something like that?
 
11th in scoring amongst all Dmen over the last 4 years including this year and a player who appears to increase offensive production come playoff time absolutely will get offers from other teams for his full cap hit, if he was made available..

the biggest issue with us moving Mo is that we were already one of the worst defenses in terms of offense in the league and removing Mo makes that significantly worst. so if you remove him who are we replacing him with?
Yes we need the offense he provides. But the thing is he's just an offensive specialist who shouldn't be trusted with big minutes or tough matchups. He's Barrie, Krug, Gostisbehere, shattenkirk, Liles, Klingberg, DeAngelo... What's had been But the leafs, from the start, misjudged what he was and what he was capable of. We drafted him so high so he must be a future Norris candidate, right? Sorry, nope. No matter how much you pay him and how many minutes you give him. So if we need offense, there are guys like that available all the time, and for much less than we're paying Rielly. Just pull one off the scrap heap like all the recent successful teams have done.
 
Rielly is fine and can get pts. But no way he's worth $7.5M/yr till 2029 taking him to age 35.

He can look really bad on goals being caught out of position due to pinching and trying to be a two way dman ready to pounce on scoring and simply being outmuscled.

But given the team's dmen structure, he's the main dman who can get 50 pts or so. If leafs get rid of him and dont replace him with another dman like that, the team has a bunch of dmen who get maybe 25 pts each tops.
 

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