NEW HEIGHTS
No matter what Maple Leafs’ Morgan Rielly achieves on the ice, the defenceman remains determined to surpass it as soon as possible
He had done wall sits, wall squats and side planks. He had completed one-legged Russian deadlifts and one-legged box jumps. He had even performed a Prone Cobra and something called Inch Worms.
Now, Morgan Rielly was considering the chair.
Technically, chair jumps are not part of the average hockey player’s workout routine. It is not even a piece of exercise equipment. But with the music blasting and his energy flowing, Rielly’s inner Tigger took over as he bounced over a folding chair at Twist Sport Conditioning Centre in Vancouver.
In the process, said personal trainer Evan Eichler, a new game was created: How high can Rielly jump?
Eichler set up a hurdle at 30 inches and Rielly cleared it. Then 40. And 50. And, in a moment that was captured on an iPhone two years ago and has been since viewed more than 28,000 times on YouTube (“Morgan Rielly breaks Twist record with 60 inch vertical jump”), he sprung roughly the height of 5-foot-8 Toronto Maple Leafs teammate Brandon Kozun.
“That’s pretty good,” said Rielly, who paused for effect and then added, “for a white boy from Canada.”
The most impressive thing about the 6-foot-1 Rielly, who can dunk a basketball, is not that he can jump particularly high. It is why he can jump high. Like Phil Kessel, Rielly is a bit of an athletic freak. But he also has a level of drive and determination that trumps most members of the Leafs — if not the average NHL player.
“In terms of the athletes that I’ve worked with, he’s definitely one of those special guys that have a different gear and a different head space than the average,” said Eichler, an Ontario native who now works out of Maryland. When he is not training professional hockey players, he is preparing members of the U.S. military to become Navy SEALs.
“It’s basically like having a group of Morgans,” Eichler said. “They have a very similar drive. Morgan was an outlier even in terms of professional athletes. He’s something special.”
A year before he shattered the unofficial Twist vertical-jump record, Rielly had basically shattered the ligaments in his knee when he crashed into a goal post during a Nov. 6, 2011 game while playing for the Moose Jaw Warriors. Forget jumping hurdles. Rielly, who missed almost all of his draft year, could not even walk without the aid of crutches. His eventual YouTube moment was the culmination of months spent in the gym rehabbing his torn ACL and strengthening the leg muscles around it.
“I basically lived there,” said Rielly, who broke his own vertical jump record last summer. “They asked me to pay rent. I went there every day. If you can jump high, that’s great. But if you can’t link it [to onice performance], it’s useless.” The linkage for Rielly is his powerful skating stride.
It is that determination, mixed with elite skill and skating ability, which made Rielly the only “untouchable” on the Maple Leafs’ roster heading into last month’s trade deadline. Along with first-round prospect William Nylander and whomever the Leafs se- lect with their first pick in this summer’s NHL Draft, the second-year defenceman is expected to be a core member of the rebuilding movement.
According to some within the organization, he could lead it.
“He’s very mature,” said defenceman Jake Gardiner, who has been Rielly’s roommate for the past two years. “He’s only 21 years old and you’d think he’s 25 just with the way he acts. On the ice, it’s the same way. He’s going against [Jaromir] Jagr and pushing him around because he’s so strong. His game has really elevated this year.”
The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the early stages of rebuilding. Six players were traded before last month’s deadline and another three or four are earmarked for exile in the off-season.
Who stays could depend on a number of factors, such as age, ability and character. That last one should not be overlooked. After watching the team suffer yet another mid-season collapse, management is looking for players who will not fold when adversity strikes.
They want players who obviously have natural abilities, but who also have a natural desire to want to get better. They want more Morgan Riellys.
When Rielly’s career was in jeopardy as a 17-year-old and he was unable to join the team on a road trip, he did not sit at home and stare at the walls. He drove to the rink and waited for his teammates in the parking lot, sometimes at 3 a.m., to greet them after a win or loss.
“I enjoyed it,” Rielly said. “It was not like I dragged myself there. I wanted to hear what was going on with the team. I didn’t want to be an outsider.”
This season has tested Rielly in ways that he cannot describe. It has aged him. On the ice, the team has been a complete failure, dropping from a playoff spot at the beginning of January to a spot in the bottom five with less than two weeks remaining.
Off the ice, where Rielly has been a constant post-game presence in the dressing room, it has been just as bad if not worse. He has experienced Salute-gate, has seen one teammate feud with the media and another receive a team-imposed suspension for arriving late to practice. He even took one on the chin himself.
A month ago, when asked about the challenge of staying motivated in a losing season, Rielly said, “You’re not here to be a girl about it.” It was a throwaway comment. But a couple of hours later, Rielly was trending on Twitter and forced to apologize for what he called a “careless” phrase.
“When you experience what we experienced this year — which is a number of things — you learn from it,” Rielly said. “You grow from it and hopefully in the end you’re able to draw from it in the future. Just try to keep it in the back of your mind when things get tough down the road.
“You’re forced to learn on the fly. That’s a good thing, I guess.”
Since Peter Horachek took over as head coach in January — and the Leafs placed development coach Steve Staios behind the bench as an assistant — Rielly’s game has grown to new levels. Other players might look as though they are not trying anymore. But you cannot make that accusation with Rielly.
He leads Toronto defencemen with eight goals and is tied with a team-leading 28 points. In the last 29 games, he has the same number of goals (four) and assists (10) as he did in the first 47 games. The only difference is that his ice time jumped from 18:36 before the all-star break to 22:29 after.
“The sky’s the limit,” teammate Nazem Kadri said after Tuesday’s 3-1 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning, in which Rielly joined a threeon-two rush and scored on a feed from Kadri.
“He’s just so naturally gifted.”
Rielly could do that more often if he wanted. He has the ability to join rushes any time and become a dangerous offensive player. But part of his onice maturation this season is being able to pick his spots and is realize, “it’s not about trying to do it all in one period.”
Rielly wants to be more than a high-wire act on defence and instead be a defenceman that the Leafs can trust in all types of situations. He wants the type of career that Duncan Keith is having.
He wants to keep jumping higher.
“There are so many guys with that natural gift, but he’s got the drive to want to perfect it,” Eichler said. “When he achieves something, he shrugs his shoulders and says, ‘ What’s next?’”
Next for Rielly will likely be the world championship in May, and the expectation is that he will start next season on the Leafs’ top defence pairing. There remain many bars left to jump over.
“I jumped 62 inches last summer, so I have to break it again,” Rielly said. “I think that’s the attitude you have to have or else you’re a step behind.”
He’s very mature. He’s 21 years old and you’d think he’s 25