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# Getting to know Morgan Rielly with Darren Raddysh
- URL: https://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/getting-to-know-morgan-rielly-with-darren-raddysh/
- Published: 2026-09-26T12:00:49.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-26T12:00:49.000Z
- Description: Rielly is back on the first pair, right where he was, but in a whole new situation.
- Author: Cathy Squires
- Tags: Player Profile

After months of trade rumours, and what certainly seemed like a genuine attempt by the Leafs to part with Morgan Rielly, he's still on the team, back on social media, and instantly paired with Darren Raddysh on the top pair in practices. 

Rielly has never been all that well understood as a player because measuring defence is a tricky business, and the question with him is: does his offence outweigh his defensive problems. Is he a glass cannon? And if so, how brittle is the glass?

I looked at this back in May to work through by feelings about Rielly but mostly my epic skepticism of Chase Reid. 

[Defence Defence DefenceThe perennial Leafs deficiency will inform their offseason choices.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/34/01/3401a938-f468-4c02-a227-9bc4cc09bad4/content/images/icon/PPP-Goalie-Logo_RGB-5ccc34b3-5462-4a24-81cb-9fea1debbe84.png)PPP LeafsCathy Squires![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/34/01/3401a938-f468-4c02-a227-9bc4cc09bad4/content/images/thumbnail/photo-1588362951121-3ee319b018b2-656f88da-6e96-4269-975f-d5b7e01b8d40.jpg)](https://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/defence-defence-defence/)

What that stroll through the recent past of defender results says that's relevant today is that perception of offensive talents clouds our judgement simply because it's easier to see (or is based on points). But offensive gifts in defenders are rare, not as powerful as what forwards can achieve and can be totally outdone by defensive deficiencies. In his career, the period covered in that article, Morgan Rielly is a net positive entirely due to real offensive impacts, but only if you add in his power-play value. 

And then the Leafs got Darren Raddysh who has genuine offensive skills, a legitimately good shot, and results that show offence creation. He is not at all a player who moves around the ice like Rielly and his power-play style is totally different. His defence is better than Rielly's but not outstanding, and the question of where that leaves Rielly did not include many guesses of "paired with Raddysh".

So who exactly is Rielly now? What does he really do? "Bad at defence" is hardly precise, and imprecision is where roll your own narratives are born. 

### The Basics: Vitals and Stats

- Age: 32
- **Position**: LD
- **Height**: 6'1"
- **Weight**: 219
- **Draft: fifth overall in 2012**

#### Stats

It's obvious just from the basic stats that last season was very anomalous in a career of fairly stable results playing with some very low quality defence partners and very high quality forwards.

[NHL Edge](https://www.nhl.com/nhl-edge/skaters/morgan-rielly-8476853?ref=pensionplanpuppets.com) shows that Rielly has a shot that is below average in speed, but his skating speed is very good. He is not the top of the NHL in defender speed, but he is not far off. Edge stats go back to 2021-2022, and they do show a very modest decline in speed over that period, but not anything like what is usually imagined age-related decline involves. He was in the 87th percentile last season.

#### Advanced Stats

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/34/01/3401a938-f468-4c02-a227-9bc4cc09bad4/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-22-073118.png)

This plot, from last season is generally what all recent seasons look like; however, when Sheldon Keefe was the coach, the coverage was almost all of the ice, well into the right side, and a bit heavier in the slot and closer to the net. However, it would be wrong to think that Rielly has ever done anything like the majority of his shooting like a winger; those are more memorable moments, but they really don't happen all that often.

His average shot distance is a few feet shorter than Raddysh's, a not very meaningful difference, although Raddysh *looks* like he shoots from greater distance because he scores goals from distance. Lane Hutson is at 40 feet. Quinn Hughes at 42.

Now comes the tricky business of measuring defence. Rielly's worst year under Berube was actually the first one, not last season. He was closer to himself last year than most of the team, it was just invisible in his points since you can't get assists if none of the forwards can score goals and you're all circulating in the defensive zone too much. Toronto's defence was very slightly better with Rielly on the ice last year. Not the standard narrative at all.

If we go back the "red blob of death" years where the offence the Leafs produced was relentless and showed up on heatmaps as the aforementioned blob, we can find 2021-2022, where the team was at -10% on defence by HockeyViz. That's better than league average, so minus is good. Rielly's on-ice measure that season was -7%. The difference between on-ice and impact measures is key here, because it is very wrong to say that Rielly's impact is the difference between the two measures. That's where you start, but it's not where you should stop in figuring that out. 

HockeyViz rates his career snapshot at the end of that season (so mostly that season but informed by prior years) at +6% impact on defence. That is then relative to league average, so he's worse than average, but +6% does not equate to overall bad defence at the team level just from his presence. Too often a look at impact measures is imagined to be the on-ice end result, but it is how that individual influenced the result – his thumb on the scale. Rielly's impact value is not the numbers you get from a good defensive defender, though, obviously.

Evolving Hockey's RAPM model is another isolation model. So this is, again, not on-ice results, but some measure of Rielly's impact on the overall picture. 

![Plot object](https://storage.ghost.io/c/34/01/3401a938-f468-4c02-a227-9bc4cc09bad4/content/images/2026/09/data-src-image-a2d0e301-8987-4cb0-ac30-dce29d348340.png)

Comparing him to Raddysh, you get offensive impacts that were similar last season, but big swings in the defensive and power-play impact measure. Raddysh is not excellent defensively, but he is good, and Rielly just isn't. But in terms of what sort of glass cannon he is, he's a usable one, whose defensive problems are nowhere near some of the worst examples for this sort of player. 

His power-play value is the reverse of Raddysh's on the Lightning. There Raddysh was the shooter, or the threat of a shot, and his impact was all on goals scored. Rielly is the setup guy, not the shooter, and his impacts are on the amount of offence the group as a whole has. 

### The Good: 

Rielly is a fast skater, who even in his worst season, was faster than most players on the Leafs at that time. He has real offence creation abilities, handles the puck very well, carries though the neutral zone well and can play a cycle game decently well. He's big enough to defend physically, and isn't shy about it, but it's not his main weapon.

### The Flaws: 

He has no meaningful point shot skill, so asking him to shoot more from there is fairly useless. He is not particularly good at limiting quantity or quality of shots against, and he's not a big physical force at the net front. 

### Overall Assessment

Rielly is not nearly as bad defensively as his reputation would have it. But the problem with any defender whose positive impacts come entirely from offence is that a defensively sound partner simply cannot mitigate his defensive play to any great degree. You can't play both sides at once.

Pairing Rielly with Raddysh puts two very different kinds of offence creation together – one shot and position based, the other more dynamic and focused on puck movement. 

What has to happen defensively is one of two options, yank Rielly off the ice as the play goes south or have a defensive system that does not require high levels of the skills he doesn't have. It's unlikely he'd be paired up with a defensively tasked forward line, so the forwards he does play with need to not be standing around confused or indifferent. 

In one preseason outing Rielly-Raddysh played with the Matthews line more and the Tavares line less, which seems sensible. This requires a third pair with some balanced skills to play with the heavily offensively focused Tavares line, and in that one game that was Ekman-Larsson and Troy Stecher.

I believe Rielly's more subtle impact on the power play is the reason why many coaches have looked to swap him for someone else. I do think Raddysh's right shot and positional style tips the balance to him now he's on the team, but Rielly has never been "the problem" on the power play. He would likely be the best second unit defender in the NHL. 

I think it bears repeating that in the worst season the Leafs have plunked down since the one that led to Brendan Shanahan wielding a scythe, Rielly was just himself. 

Player evaluation is not just about finding new players, it's about an honest read on who is already on your team. Reality, not reputation or cap hit have to determine how a player is used. And trying to force a player into a system they simply are not suited to appeals to people of a certain mindset, but it won't actually work very well.

The cliché of balancing defensive pairs doesn't actually work in the defensive zone in any real way. In the offensive zone, you do want someone who wanders less when you look for a partner for someone like Rielly. 

Will Rielly-Raddysh last? I don't know, but they are not two identical players put together, that much is very certain.