Morgan Rielly will probably have a banner hanging in the rafters of Scotiabank Arena one day, long after his NHL career is done.
Rielly has the second-most points (549) and assists (451) of any Toronto Maple Leafs blueliner — topped by only Börje Salming — and the fifth-most goals (98).
He isn’t the best defenceman to ever play for the Leafs, but he’s somewhere in the top 10 for sure.
Franchise rank (D)
Games
951
3rd
Goals
98
5th
Assists
451
2nd
Points
549
2nd
Selected fifth in the 2012 draft, Rielly has been a member of the team for almost 14 years now. He was drafted by then-Leafs president and GM Brian Burke and was first coached in the NHL by Randy Carlyle. Almost all of his rookie-year teammates are not just out of the league, but long gone in some cases, including Joffrey Lupul, Dave Bolland and David Clarkson.
Rielly has been through it all with the Leafs. Now there’s a chance his time in Toronto might finally be coming to an end.
Discussions between John Chayka and Mats Sundin of the Leafs and Rielly’s agent, J.P. Barry, are ongoing about the possibility of Rielly going elsewhere this offseason, according to a league source who was granted anonymity so that he could talk freely. Rielly is ranked sixth on Chris Johnston’s offseason trade board for The Athletic.
But to get a deal done, the Leafs need to clear a series of not-insignificant obstacles first.
In fall 2021, Rielly signed an eight-year contract with the Leafs, which included a full no-movement clause. He will have full say on where he goes, if anywhere, in a trade. Where he’s willing to go is precisely the kind of thing Chayka and Sundin would be talking about with Barry, who also happened to represent Sundin during his playing days.
Is Rielly open to moving to a young and frisky team that also happens to be out of the spotlight and in need of defencemen, such as the San Jose Sharks? Is he willing to go home to Vancouver to play for the rebuilding Canucks? Or will he only go elsewhere to play for a contender?
The Leafs need one of the teams Rielly wants to also want Rielly and his contract, and be willing to agree to trade terms Chayka and Sundin find acceptable. What do they expect to get back in a deal? A mid-round draft pick and/or a so-so prospect? A roster player of some kind?
Would this be a pure salary dump? Might the Leafs even have to attach a sweetener, considering Rielly’s recent play and the size of his contract ($7.5 million cap hit), as they did years ago in moving Patrick Marleau, Nick Ritchie and Petr Mrázek?
The Leafs will have to see if they can make a trade without having to retain salary, and if not, decide how much retention is too much ($1 million? $2 million) for a deal with four years still remaining.
The Chicago Blackhawks retained $2.5 million annually for the five years remaining on Seth Jones’ contract when they dealt him to the Florida Panthers in 2025, but got back goaltender Spencer Knight and a first-round pick.
The New York Rangers, on the other hand, retained nothing when they dealt Jacob Trouba’s contract (which had only 1 1/2 seasons remaining and a cap hit of $8 million) to the Anaheim Ducks, but received only a fourth-round pick and a depth defenceman.
Could a weak free agent class help the Leafs trade prospects here? Evolving Hockey’s model suggests that Rielly could draw a three-year deal with a $6.39 million cap hit right now if he were signing with a new team. Not so far off, in other words, from his current contract.
If they can’t move him outright, the Leafs could explore a deal that brings back another unattractive contract of some kind. With the Sharks as a potential destination, defenceman Dmitry Orlov, who has one year left on his contract with a cap hit of $6.5 million, might come back the other way. If the Oilers retained something on Darnell Nurse’s contract, which has four years left and a $9.25 million cap hit, that could also be a productive swap for the Leafs and their defence. (Would it make any sense for the Oilers?)
Would it make sense for the Leafs, in need of a top-six winger, to swap Rielly for Brock Boeser? Boeser might be more useful to the Leafs in the short term, if he agreed to a trade from the Canucks. However, his contract has another six years to go (two more than Rielly) with a cap hit of $7.25 million. The 29-year-old scored only 22 goals last season and has topped 30 goals and 60 points only once.
What would interested teams be getting in Rielly at this point in his career, more than 1,000 games between regular season and playoffs?
He finished with only 36 points in 78 games last season (0.46 per game), his worst per-game output since the 2016-17 season when Mike Babcock had him defending top lines next to Nikita Zaitsev (0.36). He had only 41 points in 82 games two seasons ago.
How much of that dull offensive impact was about his always-awkward fit under the since-fired Craig Berube?
Well, consider that in the three seasons before Berube, when the Leafs were still coached by Sheldon Keefe, who had the team controlling the puck and playing on offence more often, Rielly posted 167 points in 219 games — or 0.76 per game.
Rielly’s offence
SeasonPoints per gameCoach
2021-22
0.83
Keefe
2022-23
0.63
Keefe
2023-24
0.81
Keefe
2024-25
0.50
Berube
2025-26
0.46
Berube
Rielly was younger and more spry back then, and playing alongside more talented players, but there’s no question Berube wasn’t right for him and he wasn’t right for Berube. It’s reasonable to think that Rielly’s offence will tick back up with a different coach. And it’s worth pointing out that the Leafs still produced their best offence last season (shots, attempts, expected goals) when Rielly was on the ice compared with the team’s other blueliners.
But there were non-Berube issues at play too.
Rielly’s defensive struggles were more pronounced. He had the second-worst defensive rating at his position this past season, though all that time in the defensive zone under Berube’s system certainly didn’t help. It’s evident (and not at all surprising) that Rielly isn’t the skater he once was — and that’s affected everything from defending to engineering scoring opportunities.
Consider the drop-off from Rielly’s peak at age 27 (the 2021-22 season) to last season at age 32.
Bursts (KPH)2025-262021-22
35+
2
8
32-35
69
101
29-32
386
483
The offensive slide wasn’t solely about Berube’s methods and Rielly’s ill-fated attempts to fit into it.
Rielly went from being a somewhat helpful part of a top power-play unit that featured Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares to being unhelpful and frequently removed from the No. 1 unit the last two seasons. Rielly has scored only 16 power-play goals in his NHL career. Darren Raddysh had 10 alone last season for Tampa.
Nor has Rielly played a regular role on the Leafs’ penalty kill in recent years.
On the plus side, Rielly was arguably the Leafs’ best playoff player during their run of nine consecutive postseason appearances. In fact, he has the second-most playoff goals (15) and third-most points (47) by a defenceman in franchise history. He has the 10th-best points per game (0.67) of any NHL defenceman who played at least 40 games since 2017.
Pull him out of the sometimes tiring Toronto spotlight, get him playing for a coach who buys into his offensive stylings, pair him with a solid partner, trim his responsibilities somewhat and Rielly could still be a useful defenceman at age 32. He can still transport the puck and offer experience and leadership qualities to any defence.
Again and again, we’ve seen players just like Rielly, thought to be washed in one place, go elsewhere and thrive. Trouba, who is the same age as Rielly, found life again as a top-pairing defenceman with the Ducks last season. So did his 35-year-old teammate, winger Chris Kreider, for that matter. Kevin Shattenkirk had his contract bought out by the Rangers in 2019. He won a Stanley Cup, playing 19.5 minutes a night for Tampa in the playoffs, the next season. Jones won a Cup in Florida a few months after his trade from Chicago.
Could that rejuvenation still happen in Toronto? It seems unlikely at this point.
While the Leafs don’t have to trade Rielly, there’s a growing belief that it might just be time — for both team and player. Whether because of his own struggles, the team’s unexpected struggles, the many controversies that came with it, or all that decade-plus under the microscope in Toronto, Rielly looked like he needed a change last season.
Getting around the obstacles to that change may not be easy for the Leafs and their new leadership team. Just one of many complicated puzzles to figure out this offseason.
–Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey-Reference, NHL EDGE, PuckPedia, Hockey Stat Cards and Evolving Hockey
