Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

44

Morgan Rielly

Toronto Maple Leafs Defense

Thirty-four assists and a minus-8, in the least productive full season since he became a first-pair defenceman.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2013-14TOR7322527-1312100962.117:38
2014-15TOR8182129-16141001485.420:20
2015-16TOR8292736-17282101675.423:14
2016-17TOR7662127-20211011713.522:10
2017-18TOR7664652-4141001823.321:36
2018-19TOR82205272+24143052239.023:07
2019-20TOR4732427+6240021232.424:12
2020-21TOR5553035+11141011015.023:37
2021-22TOR82105868+16402032214.523:44
2022-23TOR6543741-9211011263.221:42
2023-24TOR7275158+7271001734.023:44
2024-25TOR8273441-8211021265.621:23
2025-26 so far
Career87387426513-232501511518574.722:08

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

7 goals and 34 assists in 82 games — 41 points at 21:23 a night, minus-8, with only 21 penalty minutes on 126 shots.

49.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 47th percentile, across 1,439 minutes — the most on the roster. His ice went 40-39 against an expectation of 54.06-54.93. Fourteen goals of scoring did not arrive on the ice of the club’s most offensive defenceman, which is the strangest single number in this chapter.

The Finesse Game

126 attempts at a median of 43 feet with 56 per cent from beyond 40 — a lower perimeter share than most defencemen, because he joins the rush.

34 assists is the reason he plays and it is a considerable number for a season in which his ice scored 40 goals at five-on-five. He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out, and under a forecheck he escapes rather than chipping it.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 219 and he does not play a physical game. He does not clear the front of his own net and he does not finish checks.

21 penalty minutes in 82 games at twenty-one minutes a night is a very low rate. He defends by skating and by stick position, and the club has paired him with size for most of a decade because of it.

The Intangibles

Fifth overall in 2012 and 873 games and 513 points, all of it here — the longest-serving player on the roster by four years and the only one who was here for the 2013 collapse in Boston.

He is 31 and signed through 2030. Forty-one points is the fewest he has managed in a full season since 2016.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,439 minutes

Expected goals
49.6%
48th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.3%
35th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 40 for, 39 against. Expected: 54.1 and 54.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
49th
Numbers
48th

The two rank him within 1 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 1439 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club
TOR took 50.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.6% — 0.6 below the club he did it on.
The role
First pair, 1,439 minutes at five-on-five — 96th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
William Nylander48.5%50.3%50.4%
Oliver Ekman-Larsson46.3%51.6%51.8%
John Tavares48.9%49.9%48.9%

48.5% together, 50.3% for him apart and 50.4% for Nylander apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

194 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 31 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 56% from beyond forty.