The Maple Leafs May Have an Internal Answer to the Morgan Rielly Conundrum
The Toronto Maple Leafs have long been searching for a consistent partner for Morgan Rielly, and may have accidentally stumbled on the solution.
The Maple Leafs' longest-tenured defenseman, Morgan Rielly, has needed a consistent defense partner for almost as long as he's been a Leaf.
The laundry list of names that have crossed paths with Rielly over the years is vast. The list is littered with names like Matt Hunwick, Ron Hainsey, and in more recent years, Luke Schenn and Ilya Lyubushkin.
Now, we might be able to add another unexpected D partner to that list, as Rielly appears to have tangible chemistry with depth defenseman Philippe Myers.
According to The Leafs Nation's Nick Richard, despite a small sample size, the numbers may support the Leafs perhaps giving this pair a longer look.
The common theme among the D partners who have performed unexpectedly well next to Rielly is that they were all low-event, shutdown defensemen.
Rielly, as we know, is much more offensively inclined than he is defensively adept, so pairing him with a defense-first partner seems to work well for the most part.
There are times, though, where even higher quality defensive defensemen, like T.J. Brodie and Chris Tanev haven't been able to adequately click with Rielly after both were brought in to be the answer.
Tanev was originally thought to be the long-term solution for Rielly, with the Leafs committing to a 6-year deal with the veteran shutdown defenseman with the expectation that he'd slot in next to Rielly on the top line.
Even Rielly himself was blown away by the talent of Tanev when he was initially brought in. However, as it turns out, Tanev is a much better fit with Jake McCabe, forming one of the NHL's top shutdown pairs -- again, leaving the team in search of a partner for Rielly.
Meanwhile, Myers was brought in to be a 7th or 8th defenseman with little hope of actually seeing consistent play.
Given his clear chemistry with Rielly, though, perhaps the Leafs should consider giving them a run of games together just to see if they accidentally struck gold.
