Sheldon Keefe makes some interesting comments about Morgan Rielly following last night's loss
Since acquiring Jake McCabe, Luke Schenn and Erik Gustafson in various trades prior to the trade deadline, Sheldon Keefe and the Leafs have opted to go with an 11 forward 7 defenseman lineup more often than not to get everyone involved. The use of 7 defensemen for Keefe has limited the minutes for each of his defencemen, but in particularly Morgan Rielly.
Since March first, Rielly has played more than 20 minutes just three times in 8 games, and in those three games it has not been by much with his most time on ice coming against Vancouver where he played 21:39. Following last night's game where Rielly scored his third goal of the season, and the only goal for the Leafs, Keefe was asked about Rielly's play of late and if limiting his minutes was giving him more jump.
"It is hard to really figure that. I don't think he has had the same jump in some of the previous games. In this one, he started that way. He rips one off the cross-bar early on. He jumps into the hole to get the puck to shoot it. He jumps into a similar hole on the second chance, which he makes good on. He mixes up the shot; the first one is high and off the bar. The second one is low corner. It was a terrific start from him. I am not sure what you can attribute it to, but that is what we need to see from Morgan in terms of jumping into those holes and kind of being that guy off of the puck that can be a threat for us offensively. I thought he played hard and defended well as well."
Keefe's assessment of Rielly's play is certainly fair as the team expects a lot from him, and admittedly sometimes too much as their number one blueliner, but I believe him not having "jump" in some of the previous games is more due to the fact he was playing with a new partner in either Jake McCabe or Timothy Liljegren or Erik Gustafson. Last night was his best game in a while and he was paired with his most familiar partner T.J. Brodie more often than not. Understandably, Keefe is trying to get everyone familiar with each other, but maybe there is too much tinkering as Rielly seems to play his best when paired with Brodie.
