Refreshed Morgan Rielly looks to continue upswing in play for Maple Leafs

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As he relaxed during the 4 Nations Face-Off break, Morgan Rielly got to thinking.

The Maple Leafs defenceman turned a corner in the team’s final games before the tournament and was playing his best hockey of 2024-25. Then, the lull in the schedule hit.

“With the timing of it, the only argument I could make was that I felt like I was in a good place with my game,” Rielly told the Toronto Sun after practice at the Ford Performance Centre on Wednesday. “I would have liked to keep going, but at the same time, the break was perfect, so I got what I needed out of it and I feel good now. It’s right back to work.”

A heart-to-heart conversation with Leafs coach Craig Berube as Toronto’s four-game trip got underway in Edmonton on Feb. 1 was key in getting Rielly to a good place on the ice. As the Leafs won three out of four games on the trip, it was evident that Rielly’s belief in himself was back.

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“It’s a really healthy, direct, honest conversation and that’s what you get with him,” Rielly said. “I’m certainly appreciative of that. I don’t think he wants me to lie to him about how I’m feeling. I don’t want him to lie to me about what he sees. That helped me a lot.”

Said Berube on Rielly’s on-ice improvement: “You could see the confidence in him, more than anything, for me. (He was) playing the game with anticipation a little bit more and jumping up into play, and doing things offensively that he’s very good at. We need to keep pushing that with him, along with our other D. We have to get more active.”

In other words, Rielly is trusting his instincts, especially on the offensive side. He has continued to lead Leafs D-men in ice time this season (21 minutes 30 seconds on average) despite the dip in his play.

For those who figure the Leafs would be better off without him, perhaps keep in mind that Rielly logs important minutes on a team that is in a battle for first place in the Atlantic Division. He wouldn’t be getting that ice time if Berube and his staff thought Rielly couldn’t work his way back to success.

It’s all the better, of course, for the group if Rielly — the only Leafs defenceman to play in every game this season to date — continues on an upward swing once the Leafs return to action on Saturday against the Carolina Hurricanes at Scotiabank Arena.

“I don’t know whether I would call it relief (that he took steps in the first week of February), but I felt like I was doing everything I could to work my way through a tough stretch to get back to where I wanted to be,” Rielly said. “I wasn’t taking any shortcuts. It was more a sense of feeling good about things. My expectation is to get right back to where I was when we left.”

Given the manner in which he was playing, Rielly was able to unwind a little more in getting away for a vacation with his wife, Tessa Virtue, and their baby son, McCormick.

“The past couple of bye weeks, the all-star breaks or whatever, I’ve just been around here, so to have time with the two of them, it was really a special time for us,” Rielly said.

So now, the final 27 games of the regular season are about to kick in. For the Leafs to surge past the Florida Panthers and win the Atlantic Division — the three remaining games between the teams will be rather large — Rielly will have to make an impact.

That goes for all of the Leafs, but Rielly, the longest-serving current member of the team, wants to ensure he does his part.

“(Winning the division) is always the goal,” Rielly said. “I think it’s right there for us. We’ve been there (in the lead), we’ve dropped and we’ve had opportunities to get back up there.

“There are bigger things at stake, but that would be nice.”

tkoshan@postmedia.com

X: @koshtorontosun