The Toronto Maple Leafs will be without one of their key blue-liners for at least the next two games, as head coach Craig Berube confirmed that Morgan Rielly won’t return to the lineup until after the Olympic break.
The timing here makes sense for Toronto. With only two games remaining before the pause - a Monday tilt against the Calgary Flames followed by a back-to-back in Edmonton on Tuesday - there’s little incentive to rush Rielly back into action. Especially not with the postseason push looming and every bit of rest potentially paying dividends down the stretch.
Rielly aggravated a lingering issue during Saturday night’s 3-2 shootout win over the Vancouver Canucks. There wasn’t a single moment that stood out as the cause, but Berube noted that the injury had been bothering Rielly for some time and flared up during the game. It’s worth noting that Rielly missed a game back in October for undisclosed reasons - whether that was connected to this injury or not remains unclear.
This season hasn’t quite looked like vintage Morgan Rielly. With seven goals and 24 assists through 54 games, he’s tracking for one of his lowest offensive outputs since his breakout 2017-18 campaign.
But the struggles haven’t only been in the attacking zone. Defensively, Rielly’s numbers have raised eyebrows - his 5-on-5 regularized adjusted plus-minus for expected goals against per 60 sits among the bottom 20 for defensemen league-wide.
That stat doesn't tell the whole story, but it does highlight the challenges he’s faced in his own end this year.
With Rielly sidelined and Marshall Rifai also unavailable, the Leafs will turn to Philippe Myers and Simon Benoit to round out the third defensive pair against Calgary. That shuffle means Troy Stecher will bump up the lineup to partner with Oliver Ekman-Larsson, while Brandon Carlo - typically Rielly’s partner - will now skate alongside Jake McCabe.
It’s a patchwork blue line for Toronto heading into the break, but the decision to rest Rielly now, rather than risk further aggravation, could be a smart long-term play. The Leafs are very much in the thick of the playoff race, and they’ll need their top defenseman healthy and firing when the games start to really count.