MLHS’ Anthony Petrielli joined The JD Bunkis Podcast to discuss the Maple Leafs’ persistent injury problems, the lack of offensive contribution from the blue line, and Morgan Rielly’s slow season offensively so far.
Petrielli on the team’s lack of overall offensive contribution from the blue line:
First off, there is the obvious reason — not enough talent across the board. I don’t think anyone would fight that point.
Also, Morgan Rielly is not having a great season. You can argue that he is eating some minutes and playing with some poor partners, and I have some time for those arguments. The partner one is valid. I don’t think anyone believes that Rielly is a stud #1 defenseman, so by default, if he is not that, he needs to have a good partner. Philippe Myers is not a high-end, established partner in the league. OEL, on the right side in the top four, is also not a high-end partner. He needs to have a partner, and he hasn’t had that. That aside, he hasn’t really contributed offensively.
The Leafs really struggle to create any sort of point-shot presence. If we look at the Columbus game, there were at least 7-10 chances where there was no Blue Jacket actively challenging a defenseman with the puck; they were just kind of going near the top of the circle and fronting the shot. The Leafs could not get the shot through; they couldn’t get it through the first layer. If you were looking at the net, there were two Leafs there. It was set up the way Craig Berube wanted it to be set up, but the shot didn’t get through, or they actively passed up a pretty good look at a shot.
It is a good shooting opportunity if you are an NHL defenseman with three to five feet of space and traffic in front. You need to get it through the first layer — the winger — and see what happens from there. There is a decent chance of something good happening from it.
We have seen this a lot from opposing teams. Boston did this a lot to the Leafs in the playoffs. If you go through a lot of their past playoff series, you can see opposing teams collapsing heavily on the Leafs‘ forwards, and they dare the Leafs’ defense to make them pay. That’s been the strategy.
The Leafs spent around 70% of the game in Columbus’ end. They missed other opportunities; you don’t often see Nylander miss two breakaways and hit a post on a wide-open net. They could’ve scored other goals, but if teams are going to sit back and do that, you need some guys who can make them pay.
We see a lot that Mitch Marner likes to pull up high. How many times do we see Marner at the point at five-on-five? He loves the shot where he sifts it through traffic. William Nylander loves to come up high. I wouldn’t say Max Domi loves going up high, but he definitely doesn’t like going to the net. He is somewhere up in the high area, trying to get the puck. The defense doesn’t play well off of it. If anything, when Marner does it, they take themselves out of the play. They don’t incorporate themselves in.
That is why you’ve heard Craig Berube mention a few times the D pushing down a little bit and getting more involved. Marner will get the puck at the top, and they kind of stand at the boards and watch.
More motion and being able to shoot pucks through traffic is a skill. You can’t spend 70% of the game in Columbus’ end with Rielly registering zero shots on net.
Petrielli on the reasons for Morgan Rielly’s down season offensively:
The Leafs, in general, are creating way less off the rush.
That is the best part of Rielly’s game: activating as a fourth forward as the far-side guy. If you look back to his most recent goal — the OT winner against Philadelphia — it came at three-on-three, but it was a good shot by him. He doesn’t own a good point shot, but he does have a good wrister from inside the top of the circle off the rush. If he winds it up, it is a problem. We saw it on the Flyers goal. He got inside the hashmark and easily ripped it by the goalie. He looked like a forward scoring the goal.
Those opportunities are not nearly as plentiful. We still see some decent things in terms of Rielly passing the puck up the ice, but the Leafs aren’t generating many opportunities where the defensemen are actively going down the ice and joining the attack straight up.
Some sort of breakdown would have to happen with the way the Leafs play it systemically. They want to chip pucks off the wall, have wingers slash across, and get pucks in deep. The adjustment will need to be to create offense from within the half-court, where you are in the offensive zone with everyone set.
Rielly can do it. When he had a great series against Tampa — as a micro-example — there were a bunch of plays where he was getting shots through traffic. It is not that he is incapable of doing it. He was sifting writers through that were either goals for himself — including an OT winner — or were tipped or deflected. He has some ability to do it.
This is a bit more of a “new normal” for him. This is the way they want him to play and generate offense. You see Berube trying to give him a few more opportunities to push him to join the rush. You are seeing more examples where Marner will pull up high and Rielly will be almost at the net sometimes. He is actively pushing down and trying to get more involved that way.
This is Rielly’s first new coach in five years. Sheldon Keefe didn’t rewrite the book from Mike Babcock on the ice — he did off the ice — in that it wasn’t a drastic shift in play. This is Rielly’s first time with a new system, of sorts, in 10 years. He is struggling to adjust to it.
You have to sit back sometimes and remember, “We are 50 games in.” It is a lot of time in one sense, but at the same time, it is not a lot. You’d like to imagine some of these guys will dial it up for the stretch drive. There is still a ton of time for him to adjust.
But he is playing at a 36-point pace, which is just not good enough.