Rielly learns to roll with playoff ride
The crowd has quietened. The national anthems are being sung.
At the bench, Morgan Rielly sways gently, blinking, as spotlights swing around the darkened arena.
He’s thinking: “Play the best you can. Be solid. Help the team.”
And: “You don’t want to be the guy who makes a mistake. You want to be a guy that the coaches put out there because they trust you, they rely on you.
“You’re nervous. But it’s fun, really fun. You’ve worked all year to get to this point and now you’ve got an opportunity to play the most important hockey of your life. That’s what it feels like.’’
Sixty hockey minutes later, Rielly will have put up two assists. For naught. Just like a pair of goals from Auston Matthews. For naught. Despite a late-stage rally and surge, bang-bang goals to draw within one a-chasin’ the Bruins, Boston thrilled to set the Leafs aside 6-4 — empty-netter icing it — knotting the openinground playoff rodeo at two games apiece. Each team Harlem-shuffling away with a win in the other guys’ ’hood.
At the end of it, bent over at the waist and gasping, was Rielly.
Game 1: Coach Mike Babcock leaned on his stalwart defenceman for 24 minutes and 34 seconds of ice time.
Game 2: Twenty-three minutes and 53 seconds.
Game 3: Twenty-seven minutes and 58 seconds, six shots on goal.
Game 4: Twenty-three minutes and 24 seconds.
But skating off the ice, this night, crestfallen.
“I think we did a lot of good things,” Rielly said afterwards. And he wasn’t wrong. Toronto outshot Boston 42-31, outhit them 37-35. Tough start however, down 2-0 quickly. “When you’re at risk of dropping two games in a series, that’s what you expect. So, credit it to them.” Two games in a row would have set Boston two games back.
Not the start, not the unfolding, Rielly had envisioned, driving down to the rink.
Not a mistake, on his part, as the Leafs tipped quickly into a 1-0 hole, seconds away from shaking loose of a holding penalty assessed against Connor Brown. Which was more of a message sent, from the officials, than a 3-D infraction. Lots of buzzing energy by the Leafs through an opening 90 seconds, but the Bruins were beneficiaries of the tone-setting call, Rielly a helpless spectator on the other side of the net when Charlie McAvoy’s snapshot beat Freddie Andersen.
Lickety-split, the Bruins were up 2-0 and all the oomph seemed to drain out of the arena. Gifted with a pair of consecutive power plays, the Leafs could do nothing with their advantage.
It was Rielly who masterminded Toronto’s pushback as the first period clicked down, slowing the pace from the point, taking a good look at where he wanted to put the puck. That had been the plan since the puck dropped on this series six days earlier: lots of pucks at Tuukka Rask, a heavily engaged rearguard. “The D have to be effective,’’ Rielly had said. “When the forwards work hard to get you the puck, it’s important that you get your shots through. Traffic, rebounds, tips, whatever we can do to make life tough on their goalie.”
And so he did. Low and deliberate shot into a crunch of bodies, with Zach Hyman labouring to hold his ground, just managing to redirect the puck as it whizzed past, up and over Rask’s right pad.
One back late; another one back early in the second. Second goal for Auston Matthews — one more, at that point, than the Leafs stud managed through seven playoff games versus these Bruins a year ago.
Then, bada-bing-bada-boom, the visitors were suddenly ahead 4-2, the Leafs unable to generate much offence while Boston’s premier line came to life. And Andersen, well, ordinary; nothing worse than that.
Confidence surges. It never ebbs. Otherwise you end up like Tampa Bay. It’s sports, it’s NHL hockey, and anything can happen over the horizon in a best-of-seven series.
“We did a good job of battling back,’’ said Rielly, emphasizing the positive. “There were periods of the game where we fully controlled the play and got good chances. It’s important that we realize what makes us create those opportunities and we do more of it moving forward.’’
The Leafs are now where they started, winnowed down to a best-of-three show-your-cards, having surrendered the homeice advantage they’d snatched away by winning Game 1 at TD Garden.
Their reckoning is at hand. In their own hands, though. How assured are those hands?
“Well, we have confidence,’’ Rielly countered dryly when a media mook suggested Toronto’s pushback finish should put some lead in their pencil, “but it’s tied. It’s 2-2. I mean, they have confidence too.’’ Geez — and a reminder — those Bruins can move that puck like the blazes. Like the Leafs, actually, if with lesser style.
It was never going to be easy, certainly not as easy as the Leafs made it look in Game 1, or with the imposition of hardnosed will demonstrated in Game 3. The Bruins weren’t born yesterday. Their core is playoff-wizened.
On his face, Rielly still carries the scars of Game 7 a year ago, struck above the mouth by a Zdeno Chara shot. The playoff beard doesn’t grow over that patch of stitch-threaded skin. A bulwark on defence and a leader on the team, gaudy with the goals and points in the regular season. Skating miles in the post-season. Seventeen shots in four games, though none have found the back of the net.
A third-period end-to-end rush and backhand easily set aside by Rask. And somehow, with Rielly on the bench mere seconds later, the puck was on Chara’s freaky long stick. A tick-tock later, his half-arsed slapper was behind Andersen.
The Leafs could have folded there, trailing 5-2 late in the third. They did not. Instead, they fizzed to life, Matthews with his second, a play started by Rielly but navigated by Mitch Marner. Then, with his first of the post-season, Travis Dermott brought Toronto achingly close with just 6:33 left in regulation. Frantic hockey. For naught.
“We pick it back up tomorrow,’’ vowed Rielly. “We’ll talk about the same things, we’ll refocus, we’ll travel, we’ll have a good night at the hotel. It’s a big game for us in two days.” A day in the Life of Rielly. A night of bitter regret. And the taste of ashes.