Success of Morgan Rielly-Brandon Carlo pairing crucial for Maple Leafs as playoffs loom

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Looking back on it now, Brandon Carlo can laugh.

The day after the Maple Leafs acquired the defenceman from the Boston Bruins, Carlo headed down for breakfast at the team hotel.

He was wearing a suit, as the Bruins would for such occasions.

The Leafs wear tracksuits.

“They knew who the new guy was, that’s for sure,” Carlo said on Friday after the Leafs practised at the Ford Performance Centre, recalling the slightly awkward feeling he had that morning in Denver. “I like it. It’s a bit more comfy.”

Not quite a month later, the defence pair of Carlo and Morgan Rielly continues to gel, having been together for 13 games with seven remaining in the Leafs regular season.

Off the ice, it sounds like the friendship between the two happened not only naturally, but quickly.

“He has been one of the guys that I’ve leaned on, especially through this transition with the new things that I’ve needed to learn,” Carlo said in relaying the suit-to-breakfast story. “I appreciate that. He has been fantastic through the process.”

When the puck drops, the biggest impact Carlo can have is helping Rielly get his game to a level that the latter is happy with.

Opposites attract and certainly that can apply when the subject is defensive pairs. We saw the way that Rielly performed in the Stanley Cup playoffs two years ago when Luke Schenn lined up to his right. The pair was sharp as the Leafs advanced to the second round for the first time since 2004.

Carlo’s stay-at-home defensive manner should help bring out the best in Rielly’s offensive game. With 35 points (seven goals and 28 assists) in 75 games, Rielly is on pace for his lowest output (over 82 games) since he had 36 points in 82 games in 2015-16.

Since Rielly and Carlo were paired up, though, Rielly has just three assists and two were on the power play.

Rielly acknowledged on Friday that he got too far away from his instincts in the early going of the 2024-25 season, attempting to stay on the right side of new coach Craig Berube.

“If you look at offensive production, it’s obviously down,” Rielly said. “That wasn’t the plan going into the season. It’s not like I was going to take my foot off the gas or anything like that.

“I think I over-analyzed things a little bit with the new coach and different structure and trying to take risk out of my game. I maybe went too far.

“I’ve gone back and forth a little bit, which has been frustrating, just for myself, but now I feel really good, and I feel like I’m skating well, and I feel like in the last few games, I think we’re in a good rhythm.

“There is always a balance. I can be more aggressive offensively and I think when I’m able to do that, me and Brandon are going to complement each other and be impactful.”

It would have been imperative for Rielly and Carlo to find a groove heading into the playoffs, regardless of what was going on around them.

But if Jake McCabe is out for a long stretch with the undisclosed injury that will cause him to miss the home game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, it will be even more important that Rielly and Carlo consistently get it right.

For now, of the three Leafs defence pairs, it’s the only one staying intact with McCabe on the sideline.

The Rielly-Carlo duo has been on the ice for seven goals for and five against at five-on-five, and Berube is seeing an uptick in the pair’s play.

“I feel like it’s getting a lot more continuity between the two of them,” Berube said. “Carlo is a lot more comfortable and understanding his partner a little bit more. He’s like a vacuum out there around our net, just eating things up.

“You have a guy that is a good puck-mover and joins the rush well and gets up in the play, frees him up a little bit to do his thing. He knows that Brandon stays home. It’s just a good pair, in my opinion, that way.”

Rielly has demonstrated in the past that playing well in the post-season can be done, pressure or not.

With the Bruins, Carlo was no slouch, playing in 72 Stanley Cup playoff games in six seasons.

“Our expectation of our pairing is that we’re going to be extremely reliable,” Rielly said. “He takes a lot of pride in his own end and I do as well, and I want to be able to help him, and I certainly want to be impactful in the offensive zone.

“Our expectation is that we’re going to be out there a lot and we’re going to hold up our end of the bargain as we get going into some important hockey.”

We’re sure that would suit Leafs Nation just fine.

tkoshan@postmedia.com

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