Morgan Rielly is still expected to get moved by the Maple Leafs before next season begins, according to insider Chris Johnston.
Johnston shared the update on his own show, and it hit social media Sunday night, reigniting a storyline that has followed Rielly for months.
Nothing has changed. That's the alarming part for Toronto fans who keep hearing the same name attached to the same rumor with no resolution in sight.
Rielly is 32 years old and carries a cap hit of $7,500,000, a number that makes any deal complicated no matter how motivated the front office is.
Chris Johnston: Re Morgan Rielly/Maple Leafs: I continue to hear that the expectation is he'll still be moved before next season.
He finished this past season with 36 points on 11 goals and 25 assists across 78 games, but he also posted a minus-18 rating.
The slide got worse late. Over his last 10 games, Rielly managed just 3 points, and that dropped to a single point across his final 5.
Those are not the numbers of a $7,500,000 defenseman a rebuilding team wants to hang onto, and Toronto knows it.
Jim Hiller's arrival adds fresh pressure to Rielly's future
The Maple Leafs hired Jim Hiller as head coach on June 17, and a new voice behind the bench rarely helps a veteran already on thin ice.
Toronto closed last season on a brutal note, going 2-7-1 in its final 10 games and dropping the last 7 in a row.
The full picture is worse. Toronto finished 32-36-14 for 78 points, ranked 28th overall, with a goal differential of minus-46.
That kind of collapse tends to speed up roster turnover, and Rielly, one of the longest-tenured Maple Leafs on the roster, is the obvious symbol of a group that stopped producing.
Here's the honest read. Moving a 32-year-old at that cap number, coming off a minus-18 season, is not going to be an easy sell to other GMs.
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Toronto might want this done. Finding a partner willing to take on the money and the decline is a very different problem, and nobody has named one yet.
Should the Maple Leafs trade Morgan Rielly even if it means eating salary just to get it done?
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John Chayka may be on the verge of pulling off the trade of the summer
