Just blind hate to say that he’s not a number one.
Leafs fan chiming in to disagree.
Jake Gardiner's got one less point, but 16 more PIM and the +/- difference between the two is +13 to Gardiner. Last season Gardiner had 43 points to Reilly's 27 and Gardiner was + 24 to Reilly's -20. Let's bump Reilly up to -17 and 30 points for conversation sake given he played six less games than Gardiner, the point remains, if it's hate to say Reilly isn't a number one defenceman, what is it that says Gardiner isn't also a number one defenceman and at that, a better number one than Reilly?
Presently, Gardiner and Reilly are 17th and 18th in scoring, so in that regard, I think one could argue that they're top scoring defenceman. And perhaps we're splitting hairs, but when I think of a number one defenceman, I think of players that have monumental impact towards a team's ultimate success. I don't think the term "number one defenceman" is something akin to the rest of the order, and that's at every position. This to say, there are very few instrumental number one goalies, number one centers and number one defensemen. There certainly are a number of "number one" positions on every NHL team that provide an exceptional service to their club and if they were on other clubs might have a different impact on a club's ultimate success.
But does that sound like Morgan Reilly at this moment in his career? Or Jake Gardiner?
I can tell you this, again as a Leafs fan...I can't recall a better playoffs performance by any Leafs defender short of the Quinn era than the beast mode Jake Gardiner affected in our infamous playoffs series (loss) against the Bruins. So if I were pressed to identify our club's number one defenceman, it's Jake Gardiner.
Doesn't mean Reilly won't become a number one D, but to call Reilly one is to ignore what Jake Gardiner's done as a Toronto Maple Leaf.