Former NHL Head Coach Points To Potential Issue In Morgan Rielly's Game
Former NHL head coach and self-admitted Maple Leafs fan Bruce Boudreau gave his thoughts into why Morgan Rielly hasn't been his usual self this season.
To say it's been a rough season for Morgan Rielly is an understatement. While he hasn't been necessarily bad stats wise, it's a big underperformance for the longest tenured member of the team, and his recent demotion off the first power play is not a good sign.
Something has changed, or perhaps it hasn't. According to former NHL head coach turned analyst Bruce Boudreau believes his stubbornness to change might be his downfall.
Bruce Boudreau: Morgan Rielly Needs To Fix How He Plays
The jovial Boudreau was speaking on The Leafs Nation podcast and was asked by hosts Nick Alberga and special guest Carter Hutton about Rielly's play who mentioned his atrocious minus-16 on the season:
He hasn't adjusted to the style Craig [Berube] wants him to play so consequently, I mean...
He's still up the ice, and you can look, a lot of the time he has to circle behind the net to get back.
I used to tell Mike Green all the time 'I want you to be the fourth man up on the play, I don't want you to be the first man on the play.'
More often than not Morgan Rielly is the first or second man and he can't get back which hurts him defensively."
Rielly for all of his offensive capabilities is a defenseman at the core of things, and his constant pinching or pushing to be the catalyst as opposed to letting things come to him has cost him and Toronto.
This season, Rielly has five goals, and 17 assists but is that aforementioned minus-16, has a nearly 6:1 giveaway to takeaway ratio, he doesn't hit, has pretty lackluster positioning at times as well. His one positive is that he's at least blocking shots.
A lack of shooting has hurt him, and often on the power play it's a mess of random passes and waiting to get the open man instead of pestering the net with shots. It's not like Rielly can't shoot, he averages 177 for his career.
His shot location might be another issue. Rielly loves to let it rip from the left hand side, and while it's his dominant side, it's much harder to get a shot on the actual net and he often misses wide; perhaps centering his focus would be a benefit.
But it's when Toronto loses the puck is when it becomes a nightmare scenario. If Rielly is caught in the weeds, he doesn't have time to even hit the neutral zone before opponents get a chance.
A look at his NHL EDGE statistics show that while Rielly has the speed and distance accumulated to show that he's all over the ice, but reading between the lines, it's more of a sign that he has to go 200 feet more often than others.
It doesn't get better on special teams either. Rielly is worse than league average in offensive zone percentage, and spends over 40% of the time in the neutral and his own zone; not conducive to getting a power play started.
There's been talks about bringing in a proper shutdown defenseman in order to give Rielly some breathing room, and the short expierment so far with Jake McCabe seems to be working, but he's got a lot to improve upon.
Trade talks involving Rielly are also prevalent, with many wondering if Vancouver would be the best destination and bring Toronto J.T. Miller back in return; a massive boost to their forward group.
Whether Morgan Rielly changes things, gets a partner to help things out, or is out the door himself is undetermined. But one thing is for sure: If Rielly's stubbornness was this detrimental then they should have cut weight a long time ago.
