Insider Publicly Questions Morgan Rielly's Long-Term Future with the Maple Leafs
Former NHLer and current Sportsnet analyst Nick Kypreos made a very bold suggestion regarding Morgan Rielly's future with the Leafs beyond this season.
On Sunday, we saw Rielly snap his 27-game goalless streak by scoring the overtime winner against the Philadelphia Flyers. It was his first goal since November 5th against the Boston Bruins and couldn't have come at a better time, helping the Leafs sweep their back-to-back over the weekend.
Ahead of the Christmas break, Sportsnet's JD Bunkis and Sam McKee called out the 30-year-old amid a horrible stretch of play that saw him collect just five points in 15 games from November 20th to December 21st despite playing on the Leafs' top power play unit and averaging more than 20 minutes per game of ice-time.
On Tuesday's edition of 'The Real Kyper and Bourne Show', McKee proposed the idea that Rielly was the Leafs' whipping boy this season. At the time of writing, the poll McKee posted on 'X' has fans almost split with 56 percent agreeing with McKee that Rielly has become the Leafs' whipping boy this season.
While Kypreos and Bourne didn't exactly agree with his comments on the topic, Kypreos did make a shocking comment about Rielly's future in the blue and white.
The former first-round pick is currently in the third year of an eight-year deal, which he signed back in October of 2021.
While the cap hit is reasonable at $7.5M per season, the longest tenured Leaf has a no-movement clause through the most of his deal, as well as a modified no-trade clause in the final two years of the contract, which would make it extremely difficult to move him.
In 832 regular season games, all with the Leafs, Rielly has tallied 85 goals and 491 points while contributing 11 goals and 40 points in 57 playoff games.
If the Leafs fail to advance past the first and/or second round, there should be some major changes in the locker room come the off-season, but it would be shocking to see Rielly getting traded being one of those changes, largely due to his trade protection.
