One Maple Leafs veteran stands to benefit more than anyone else from Brad Treliving's summer additions

A lot of this summer's discussion has revolved around the new Leafs brought in buy GM Brad Treliving, but very few people are focused on what the additions of Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson will mean for existing Maple Leafs, such as Morgan Rielly.

Recently, on The Leafs Nation's "Leafs Morning Take" podcast, former Leaf Jay Rosehill discussed the positive changes he believes these signings will have for longest-serving Leaf on the roster.

That will be a big benefit to Rielly. For almost his entire NHL career he's had to carry his pair defensively. Outside of two good years with a healthy T.J. Brodie, Rielly was facing brutal competition and while playing with guys like Ron Hainsey and Matt Hunwick. There's only so much you can do when your greatest strengths offensively can't be used because you have to babysit bottom-pairing players. That's a lot of pressure, and on many nights, things got real ugly.

Now, Rielly is no longer on that island, exposed, taking everything on by himself. Now he gets to play with one of the top defensive defensemen in the world in Chris Tanev, and no, I am not overstating that. Tanev is an elite shutdown defenseman. Rielly can now shift his focus to his strengths, which are skating, joining the rush and making great plays with the puck.

As far as how OEL's presence in Toronto will impact Rielly, he'll be able to take some of the offensive burden off of Rielly, especially on the power play, which will hopefully lead to a slight decrease in Rielly's ice time, which will lead to him having more gas going to his legs during each and every shift. That extra time on the bench will come in handy in the long playoff games to come.

Rielly's finally got some back-up and that's great news for both he and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Hopefully it leads to the success that everyone is hoping for come playoff time.

Source: Hockey DB
Hockey DB