PROUD OF HIS FORMER LEAFS

It was not until Mike Babcock took over as the head coach of the Leafs that Morgan Rielly became a toppairing defenceman who this year emerged as a Norris candidate. But Rielly said it was former coach Randy Carlyle who encouraged him to be more offensive.

“When you think about your development as a player, you’d like to think it was a lot of hard work from yourself,” said Rielly. “But with that being said, I was 19 years old and I think he had a lot of impact on the way that I played. I’m grateful for that. He had a lot of great insight into what could make me successful.”

Rielly headed into Monday night’s game ranked in the top three among defencemen in scoring with 52 points in 51 games.

“The surprising part for me specifically with him is the offence he’s been able to deliver on a consistent basis,” said Carlyle. “When I saw him, he was in the infancy of his career, but you knew he was going to be a good player and could be a good player for a long time.”

Carlyle added he is just as proud of the strides Nazem Kadri and Jake Gardiner

— the two other remaining players he coached in Toronto — have made since he was fired in 2015.

“The one thing we wanted to teach Naz was to play defence, and he’s found that,” said Carlyle. “And with Jake, there was always this myth that there was some dislike with Jake Gardiner. There was never dislike for Jake Gardiner. You appreciated the player that he was and you appreciate the player that he is now.

“He’s a guy that I believe needed to play 300-plus games before he found out what he is. And he’s a player who can control the tempo of the game, he’s got some dynamics to him, he’s got hockey sense, but he is prone every once in a while to make a mistake, as we all are.”