Nothing can rain on his parade
Rielly fired up to play Canucks in hometown
If they held a homecoming parade for Morgan Rielly, he’d expect to get wet.
“I love the rain,” declared the only British Columbiaborn Maple Leaf. “It’s supposed to rain horribly while we’re there, but I’ve always said I love it.
“Tyler Bozak gets on his high horse because he lives in Denver and there’s no clouds. He thinks it bothers me when he says it’s raining all the time. But I love being in my condominium in Toronto when it rains. In Vancouver, you can smell it, you can smell the ocean and in my neighbourhood ( West Vancouver), it’s cool.”
This stop on the club’s western Canadian road trip is what Rielly looked forward to the most and possibly of all 41 games away from the Air Canada Centre. He’ll see his parents, Andy and Shirley, brother Connor was coming to the homestead for a family dinner and then there’s Maggie, his yellow Lab. It was a puppy when Rielly was still a junior with the Moose Jaw Warriors seven years ago, and he says it’s still one of the hardest things he does every September, driving away from Maggie when he leaves for camp.
But Rielly did not seek permission to stay over at home Friday night, fear of missing Mike Babcock’s team meeting for Saturday’s 4 p.m. local start against the Canucks superseded family time.
“I’m terrified of the traffic,” Rielly explained. “I don’t want to be on the other side of the ( Lions Gate) Bridge. I’ ll just go back to the team hotel after dinner.”
There will be lots to discuss at the Rielly table about the Leafs, his fine season on defence, his growing role on a contending team as an alternate captain and the rare chance to win all three games on the trip.
Toronto caught Calgary a bit rusty as the Flames came back from their six- game road trip. The Leafs out- worked them 4-1, then won Thursday’s tilt 6- 4 in Edmonton in bizarre fashion with Oilers’ Kris Russell’s own goal.
This could be their first sweep of the west since March of 1996. The Canucks, though, are coming off a 5- 3 win over Nashville Thursday in wrapping up their long trek with a record of 3-2-1.
“They’re playing good hockey, a young team with some very good veterans as well,” Rielly noted.
The Leafs 10 goals against the Flames and Oilers ran t he gamut f r om weird to wonderful. There was Roman Polak’s pinball off two Calgary players to break the ice of a scoreless game. Auston Matthews did not get a shot on net in Calgary ( for the first time in 103 starts), but scored on his first chance in Edmonton. William Nylander ended a slump at Rogers Place, too, then came Russell’s moment of infamy, trying to get the puck off Nazem Kadri and sweeping it into his own net.
“It’s scoring chances, just being able to jump on them,” said Kadri of what’s changed during a recent drought when the Leafs dropped three of four games and were being out- played in their end.
“Sometimes on the road you get hemmed in your own zone for a couple of consecutive shifts and it’s important to turn the tide. A puck bounces out to you and you put it in.”
Vancouver has been a tough place for the Leafs to get points in recent years, a record of 1- 6-1 including a shootout loss last December.
Because of the early start Saturday for TV purposes, the Leafs will not have time f or a pre- game skate as well as having Friday off. A few players looked like they could use the extended break.
Rielly took a heavy jolt late in Edmonton, partner Ron Hainsey was limping to the bus and Matthews was fighting off a cold he said made it harder to keep up with Connor McDavid in a head- to- head match in which both stars scored.
But Rielly, yet to score in eight career games against Vancouver with just two assists, can’t wait to get to the rink.