THN Archive: The O'Reilly Factor

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The O’Reilly Factor – Mar 20, 2023 – Vol 76, Issue 11 – Ken Campbell

AS INCONCEIVABLE AS IT is now, there was a time when Ryan O’Reilly felt like he would have showed up on The Oprah Winfrey Show and opened an empty box. Oprah would have gone around pointing at members of the audience saying, “You get a car! You get a car! You get a car!” And when she reached O’Reilly, there would have been a lonely guy standing there with a trombone doing the “wah, wah, wah” sound. Think Buffalo, circa 2017-18. Or St. Louis, the first half of 2018-19.

O’Reilly started to wonder whether or not it was him. He had experienced so little success in so many places that perhaps it wasn’t just a coincidence. Prior to the 2019 playoffs and dating back to his days with the OHL’s Erie Otters, he had played a total of 18 playoff games in 11 years and had failed to win a series. Doubts that he’d ever play for a winner began to creep in. In his first nine NHL seasons, his teams had played barely above .500 hockey and had never won a playoff series. In his final season in Buffalo, he lost his passion playing for a team that was so bad it got Rasmus Dahlin. And until the Blues channelled their inner Laura Branigan and went on a historic heater in January 2019, they were holding down 31st place in a 31-team league.

Yes, he had won the Lady Byng Trophy in 2013-14, but you know what they say about where nice guys finish. He had helped Canada to gold medals at the 2015 and 2016 World Championship tournaments, but that was only because his NHL team failed to make the playoffs. (Anytime a guy goes to the worlds in six of seven seasons, it’s a pretty good indication things aren’t going so great.) And there was that World Cup title in 2016, but does it really count when you win an NHL/NHLPA invitational, a tournament where the organizers have to fabricate teams? As far as the NHL was concerned, O’Reilly was making a lot of money and playing at an elite level…and wasn’t able to shake the stink of losing.

But when Toronto GM Kyle Dubas dealt, among other things, a first-round pick to get O’Reilly on an expiring contract as a hired gun for this season, he was getting a battle-tested champion, a player who helped St. Louis end the longest active Stanley Cup drought at the time. Now all O’Reilly has to do is help end the longest Cup drought of all-time in Toronto. “I always thought about it,” said O’Reilly of the prospect of playing in Toronto, “but I never really thought it would actually happen. I’m still kind of shocked that I’m actually playing here. It’s still a little surreal, putting on this sweater and being here with this team. I’m still kind of pinching myself.”

It’s actually a great fit for O’Reilly. Both his parents are from Toronto. His wife’s father was a high-school teacher and rugby coach there. And prior to going first overall in the 2007 OHL draft, he made the move to the big city from the small town of Clinton, Ont., and won a Greater Toronto League title with the Toronto Jr. Canadiens under-16 team. As part of a remodelling of the Leafs’ supporting cast leading up to the trade deadline, O’Reilly was brought in for one reason only. And now he’s uniquely equipped to deal with it. “You can tell with the energy in the room and in between periods,” O’Reilly said. “The way these guys are and the focus and detail they put into things, you can just tell they’re trying to win. And, for myself, it’s fun to be part of that mindset. Obviously there’s tons of work that has to happen, but it’s rejuvenating for me to be around that kind of energy.”

But anyone who has watched the Leafs underachieve in the playoffs and count its moral victories in “mad respect” from the defending Stanley Cup champion knows that it takes more to win in the post-season than strapping on the pads and being talented. You need players such as O’Reilly, even if they’re in the form of a 32-year-old who isn’t quite where he was in 2019 when he had about a sixth-month stretch of being one of the best players in the world.

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Because with a O’Reilly in their lineup, there is not one area of the game where the Leafs aren’t a better team. They’re grittier, they’re playoff hardened, they’re better defensively, better in the faceoff circle and more talented in both their top- and bottom-six. Perhaps it was a slight indictment of the players who have failed to win in the playoffs when Dubas said of O’Reilly, “He’s doing everything the exact way I think you have to play when you really want to win.” But it’s indisputable that if his teammates ever get a long lip after a bad period or playoff loss, there will be at least one player in the room who can talk about how his team was in last place at Christmas and went on to win the Stanley Cup.

And the Maple Leafs are getting a player who can back up his words on the ice. “His hockey IQ is near the tops of anyone I’ve ever worked with,” said Blues GM Doug Armstrong, the man who traded O’Reilly. “He just does the right thing all the time. And that’s almost impossible to find. He affects the game without affecting the scoresheet.”

O’Reilly was knocked out of the lineup with a broken finger after taking a shot in the hand in his eighth game after the trade, but he was expected to return before the playoffs. And, really, it’s the post-season where the Leafs believe he’ll have a defining impact. Starting with getting O’Reilly and Noel Acciari from the Blues, the Leafs essentially changed the entire complexion of their secondary elements. Dubas was bold and decisive at the deadline, not only because he himself is on an expiring contract but because he believes this is the season where this team can do something special. A long playoff run is absolutely essential in 2023, but “long” in The Center of the Hockey Universe™ is defined by getting out of the first round for the first time since 2004. And that’s a good thing, considering that if the Leafs can beat Tampa Bay in Round 1, their likely opponent in Round 2 will be Boston, a team that is having one of the greatest regular seasons in NHL history and loaded up pretty well itself at the deadline.

Even with the changes, the Leafs will only go as far as Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, John Tavares and Morgan Rielly can take them. If those people don’t show up, it doesn’t matter how well O’Reilly and his band of newcomers play. But having people like O’Reilly in secondary roles puts the star players in the best position to succeed. “From a distance, it looks like Kyle had one of the better deadlines,” Armstrong said. “He created a situation where the top players have to do their jobs and nobody else’s. Their depth now is so strong that they have to do what top players are supposed to do and everything after that will get done by experienced, competent players.”

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That’s why the Leafs don’t need the Conn Smythe Trophy-winning Ryan O’Reilly, but they could use a version of the one that won the Selke Trophy the same season. The visorless, gap-toothed and ebullient O’Reilly just has to be the best version of himself, whether that’s centering Tavares and Marner on the second line (and taking away the defensive heavy lifting away from his linemates) or being a reliable third-line center. This certainly has the feel of a relationship that could extend beyond this season, although Dubas said after acquiring O’Reilly that he thinks couples should live together before they get married. There is still a lot of time for that, but a successful playoff run would go a long way toward both sides being able to co-exist without fighting over who takes out the garbage.

HIS HOCKEY IQ IS NEAR THE TOPS OF ANYONE I’VE EVER WORKED WITH. HE JUST DOES THE RIGHT THING ALL THE TIME. AND THAT’S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND– BLUES GM DOUG ARMSTRONG

After watching his team grind out a win against Calgary (and before putting up a stinker against Vancouver) in early March, Dubas talked about how the Maple Leafs have evolved. “The (Calgary game), in the third period, sort of exemplifies the difference of the team,” Dubas said. “Just a little bit more competitive, a little bit more sacrifice. And I just sense that, with the players that we’ve added and also the growth of some of the guys internally, we’re just far better in that realm.”

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