By Jack Klinck, The Hockey News intern
With the NHL trade deadline under a week away, the Toronto Maple Leafs are once again in the market for a forward to lighten the load on the team’s top scorers. And while players such as Brayden Schenn, Brock Nelson and Dylan Cozens have reportedly been in the mix, they will come at a steep price. A price that Leafs GM Brad Treliving may not want to pay.
Morgan Rielly (John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images)
But what if he didn’t have to? What if the solution has already been suiting up in the blue-and-white all along? A look down the Leafs’ depth chart shows nothing they haven’t already tried. That is, until we stumble across a certain offensively gifted, somehow still just 30-year-old, former 20-goal scorer who is just itching for a spark.
It might sound crazy at first, but hear us out: how about moving defenseman Morgan Rielly up to forward?
It seems outlandish, sure, but Rielly is a star player who can skate, move the puck and has plenty of experience playing against top competition. Just, for a second, remove his name from the equation. Big, offensively gifted, puck moving, two-way forward. That’s the perfect mold for a complementary top-six winger or third-line checking winger. And the best part? He’s already on the team.
Not only would this move give the Leafs’ offense a much-needed boost, but it would give the longest-tenured active Leafs player a chance to rekindle his game. Rielly, who was drafted fifth overall by Toronto in 2012, has struggled in his 12th NHL season. Seen as a snub by some when he wasn’t selected to Canada’s 4 Nations Face-Off roster earlier this season, it was Rielly’s teammate, Chris Tanev, who was getting traction instead when a blueline spot opened up last month.
An offensive defenseman, Rielly has never been known for his play in the ‘D’ zone, but this season, the whereabouts of his offense have been unknown – at least until recently as he has six points in his last three games. He has 32 points in 60 games and is scoring at just his seventh highest career pace per 60 minutes (per moneypuck.com). While coach Craig Berube has defended Rielly’s play, he acknowledged the team needs more production from its highest-paid defenseman.
Since Berube took over behind the bench this season, the Leafs have played a tight, structured game and have cracked down on blown leads. While the change seems to be working for the team as a whole – the Leafs sit second in the Atlantic Division – Rielly has seen his freedom to roam around the ice diminish and his offensive creativity stifled.
Desperate for more offensive production, what could alleviate the pressures of a tight defensive system? Imagine telling an offensively gifted player that instead of playing hard minutes in the defensive zone focusing on shutting down opponents’ top talent and breaking the puck out cleanly, all he has to do is backcheck and cover the points to be granted full offensive freedom in return. That trade sounds better for the Leafs than getting rid of first-round picks and prospects while clearing cap space for a new player. For a simple switch of positions, the Leafs get middle-six scoring and the potential resurgence of one of their best players.
A move to forward would help the offensive-minded defensemen tap back into the very talents that made him successful in the league. Rielly is not going anywhere. He’s signed with the Leafs through the 2029-30 season with a cap hit of $7.5 million and, at 30 years old, he still has a lot of hockey left in him.
While it sounds crazy for a player to swap positions in the best hockey league in the world, it’s not unheard of. In fact, plenty of teams have found success moving their defensemen with a scoring touch up front. The Leafs can look to the most recent cases of Brent Burns and Dustin Byfuglien making the move up front.
Drafted as a winger by the Minnesota Wild, Burns found his footing in the NHL as a defenseman. Once he was traded to the San Jose Sharks, the team began to experiment with Burns on the wing again. He scored 22 goals and 48 points in 69 games as a power winger in 2013-14 before moving back to defense the following season.
For Byfuglien, the results were even better. With a deep defense corps, the Blackhawks moved the heavyweight offensive blueliner up front. Byfuglien stepped up in 2009-10 with 11 goals in 22 playoff games, helping his team capture the Stanley Cup. After a trade to Atlanta, Byfuglien spent most of his career with the Thrashers and Winnipeg Jets back on the blueline.
While Byfuglien and Burns had strong seasons playing forward, their stay up front was short-lived. To find a blueprint of defensemen who stuck on forward, the Leafs don’t need to look any further than at their own franchise greats. After nearly 13 years with the Detroit Red Wings, the Leafs acquired Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Red Kelly in 1959-60 and used him immediately as a center. Kelly broke the 20-goal mark in each of his first three full seasons as a two-way center and was a key piece in the team’s three straight Stanley Cups from 1962 to 1964. Then in 1985, the Leafs drafted a high-scoring WHL defenseman by the name of Wendel Clark and flipped him into the hard-hitting, scoring winger we remember him as today.
But can Rielly play forward? Yes. Or at least, in theory he can. Per NHL Edge since 2021-22 (when shot-location data became available), Rielly has scored only one goal from the point. The remaining 27 have come from inside and around the circles, including 11 of them coming from in front of the net. Though he hasn’t had much net-front opportunity as a blueliner, he has proven to be a dominant factor when he’s pinching in and around the crease, and for good reason.
At 225 pounds, Rielly currently registers a top skating speed in the 69th percentile of the league. That size and speed, combined with the puck-moving abilities he’s honed as a defenseman, would be a nightmare for opposing teams to handle around the net and on the perimeter.
Now, has Rielly ever actually played up front? No. And if it doesn’t work out, the Leafs can just move him back. But the best-case scenario of reworking their struggling D-man and one of the team’s best offensive talents into a scoring power-forward is simply too good for the Leafs to pass up. With the NHL trade deadline looming, a test run of Rielly up front could be an interesting, yet effective option heading into the post-season.
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