Why the Leafs should consider moving Morgan Rielly this offseason

The summer of big contracts for top defensemen continues as Edmonton's Darnell Nurse agreed to terms with the Oilers on an 8-year, $74M deal (a $9.25M AAV) on Friday. With this deal being just the latest in a long list of top blueliners who secured the bag this offseason, one thing is abundantly clear. The Leafs should consider trading pending UFA (2022) Morgan Rielly.

First, I'd like to preface this by stating that if Rielly is amenable to signing at a discount to remain in Toronto, I think most fans would welcome the thought of Mo staying put with the Leafs on a long-term deal. It's just unlikely that he would take enough of a haircut on the deal to really make it make sense for the Leafs.

Rielly, 27, appears to be coming off of a 6-year, $30M ($5M AAV) deal at the perfect time for the player and the worst possible time for the Leafs. It's safe to say that with the pandemic forcing a flat cap for 3 straight seasons and with the league only forecasting a slow, gradual increase until 2026-27, many probably assumed that most of the contracts signed around this time would be lower than what the typical market value would be. As it turns out, that thought process was wrong.

This summer, we have now seen the likes of Miro Heiskanen, Cale Makar, Dougie Hamilton, Seth Jones, Zach Werenski and Darnell Nurse all inking rich new long-term deals between $8.4M and $9.6M. While you could nitpick to exclude Makar, Heiskanen and Werenski from this list, as they are not direct comparables for Rielly, you'd have a hard time building an argument against the Rielly camp using Hamilton, Jones and Nurse as comparables. They may even go back a year and include Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo on that list.

Now, Rielly is certainly an important piece for the Maple Leafs, but he isn't $9M important - and when you consider the haul that Columbus brought back for Seth Jones, (including Adam Boqvist, Cole Sillinger and Jake Bean, plus a first round pick in 2022), if you're Kyle Dubas, you have to at least be taking calls on Rielly.. right?

If we're using Jones as a direct comparable to Rielly, given how close they are in age, then Rielly's camp could be looking for a deal as high as $9.5M per season for the next 8 seasons.

Earlier reports from TSN's Pierre LeBrun had stated that Rielly would likely end up taking a discount to remain with the team that drafted him 5th-overall back in 2012. But what a discount might have been a few weeks ago might not necessarily be considered a discount after the waves of large contracts handed out to top defensemen over the last couple of weeks. Technically, if Rielly's ask is $9.5M and he agrees to take 8x$8M, that would still be a hometown discount. Prior to the Seth Jones deal (when Rielly was still ineligible to sign an extension), the discount rate for Rielly was probably in the $6.5M-$7.5M range.

In terms of their compared impact at 5v5, here's how Rielly and Jones stacked up last season as shown with an RAPM chart, provided by Evolving-Hockey, with Rielly having a noticeable edge.

Similarly, you can see Rielly well out ahead of Jones with the man advantage as well, which may be a big problem for Kyle Dubas and Prandon Pridham during the negotiation process, as they look to get Rielly locked up at the lowest possible number.

So with all of this in mind, and assuming that there would be vast interest in a player of Rielly's ilk, you'd have to assume that if Rielly (who owns a 10-team no-trade-list) would agree to a sign-and-trade, much in the way that Jones did, Dubas could potentially clean up. After all, Jarmo Kekalainen basically gave him the blueprint for the deal, packaging the player and a pick or two in exchange for a top defensive prospect and, a pair of 1st round picks and a 2nd round pick.

Even if less teams are lining up and you have to sell Rielly off at slightly less - say a top prospect and two 1st-rounders flat - you're still coming out ahead if you're Kyle Dubas. And if you're concerned about not being as competitive this season after losing your top LHD, then you can use what you get in the Rielly deal to go out and fetch another top end guy from a non-competing market who may have some term remaining, or you slide Jake Muzzin up to play with T.J. Brodie and you use some of your assets to acquire a legitimate top-4 LHD with term.

This one will be an intriguing situation to monitor as we do our best to navigate through the remainder of the offseason. My opinion though - it's sign Rielly or trade him. Letting him walk for nothing is not an option for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

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