Rielly gives hometown discount
Toronto and its longest-tenured player are in a better place with a long-term deal done
There was a bigger payday out there for Morgan Rielly somewhere. A chance to stride smoothly into a marketplace that recently started valuing point-producing, minute-munching defencemen like precious gems.
Except the possibility of more green didn’t amount to a greener pasture for the Vancouverite turned Torontonian, who passed up the unknowns of free agency Friday for the security of an eight-year, $60-million (U.S.) extension with the Maple Leafs.
It was such a win-win piece of business for all involved that they managed to keep talks completely leak-free. That’s saying something, especially with the storm that’s enveloped this team in the last week.
The $7.5-million cap hit attached to Rielly starting next season comes in below the going rate after seeing several $9-million deals handed out to his contemporaries. But the 27-year-old couldn’t pass up an alluring contract that will see him paid $36 million across the first four years and allows him to continue playing and living in a city that’s come to feel like home.
Crucially, it also includes a full nomovement clause through 2027-28, giving him the kind of control over his situation that the vast majority of players can only dream about.
The Leafs were at risk of losing Rielly the way they did another valued heartand-soul performer in Zach Hyman last summer. Locked into the Core Four with a flat salary cap, extreme caution must be shown by the organization with every big contractual commitment.
This one took some time.
A version of this deal was quietly on the table for the last couple weeks, needing both sides to get comfortable with it and eventually smooth over the finer points of the structure. Pen was put to paper on Friday morning.
Had the Leafs let Rielly walk away in free agency, they would have had to find someone to fill his skates while in the middle of a window where they’re trying contend for the Stanley Cup. That includes logging more minutes than everyone else each season, consistently scoring more than half a point per game and handling the off-ice duties shouldered by a trusted veteran who happens to be the organization’s longest-tenured player.
The reason the team was willing to take on the risk of age-related decline in the back half of this contract is because there aren’t many players who tick all of those boxes.
And there are even fewer of them willing to sign for less than $8 million per season.
If anything, the Rielly contract appears to mark a departure from a management team that hasn’t handed out longterm commitments to players approaching 30 since luring John Tavares as a free agent in 2018.
This is akin to making a large credit-card purchase without a clear plan to pay the bill decided on.
It puts the Leafs at $76 million in cap commitments with just 15 players under contract next year, leaving only a bit more than $6 million to lock up another goaltender and fill out the roster next summer.
But there are other levers to pull to create more room, if needed, including potentially moving one of the big-money forwards in the off-season to rebalance the books. Alexander Kerfoot is another possibility, as are veteran defencemen Jake Muzzin and T.J. Brodie, although both own a no-trade clause until July 2023.
The larger point is general manager Kyle Dubas has multiple options available to make it work, and how this season plays out will almost certainly determine the path he takes.
These Leafs are truly living for the moment.
Signing Rielly now removes a degree of uncertainty at a time
when the team is trying to pull out of an early-season swoon, and solidifies the fifth overall pick from 2012 as a long-term member of the leadership group no matter how the next five or six months play out.
He’s immensely popular inside the dressing room, inside the front office and around the city.
And it says something that he passed up his own opportunity to chase the kind of money Cale Makar, Zach Werenski, Seth Jones, Dougie Hamilton and Darnell Nurse got in recent months.
Players spend a long time
setting themselves up for the kind of summer Rielly might have enjoyed in 2022, where either he or John Klingberg would have taken top spot on the marquee among free-agent defencemen.
Deep down, he didn’t want to mess with a happy situation.
He would have had to secure an average annual value north of $8.5 million in free agency to match the total dollars he received from Toronto because of the seven-year maximum when signing elsewhere. And the places where that was available may not have been as appealing as what he has here.
At the outset of training camp last month, Rielly acknowledged the contract uncertainty was weighing heavily on his mind. He vowed not to overthink it.
“You’ve just got to come to terms with where you’re at and what makes you happy and just go with it,” Rielly said then.
That brought him right back to where he’s been all along. Where he belongs.