Morgan Rielly, a Leafs defenceman, attempted to stand up for his team. He received a five-game penalty for not being competent at it.
As everyone waited for the decision, as the debates raged like fires in a riot, and after the suspension was finally announced Tuesday night — five games for Morgan Rielly’s cross-check to Ottawa’s Ridly Greig on Saturday — the nagging feeling remained the same: This wouldn’t matter so much if the Maple Leafs were better.
Oh, people would still discuss it. On “Hockey Night in Canada,” Toronto’s finest defenseman punched an irritating Ottawa Senator following a taunting showboat empty-net goal. The only way for the cross-check to become a conversion issue would be if it occurred in front of Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl or in a Cup final against, say, Edmonton.
Even without it, it resulted in a kaleidoscope of conversation. Was the slap-shot empty-net goal excessive? Hockey, like baseball, expressly prohibits celebration, and an enjoyable empty-netter — the slap shot was undoubtedly a thrill for Ottawa supporters, as it should have been — is regarded as unneeded humiliation. It’s hilarious to be outraged because someone scored the game-winning goal too hard. But everyone expected something to happen in response.
Did Rielly do it because he believes the team is too soft? The core of this Leafs team is not tough in the traditional sense, but it is the competitive drive to be truly great that is the real issue, which is why Leafs GMs keep bringing in Kyle Clifford, Wayne Simmonds, Ryan O’Reilly, Luke Schenn, Sam Lafferty, Noel Acciari, and, god forbid, Ryan Reaves. Rielly is a key player on a squad that received criticism earlier this season for failing to respond to a foul play. Perhaps he felt compelled to speak up for his squad.
The only problem is that he is quite awful at it. Rielly has never been a malicious player, but this is his first player safety ban. The only other occasion Rielly became enraged this season was in Vancouver, following a routine net-front scrap against Filip Hronek in an emotional game.
A few days before, Rielly had taken his first two penalties of the year, a hooking penalty and a trip, and he admitted, “I was excited to go to the box. “I didn’t want that goose egg on there anymore.” When asked if he wished to be considered for the Lady Byng, Rielly smiled and replied, “No comment.”
No, Rielly is not a masher, and nothing in his background indicates that he intends to harm others. We wouldn’t be talking about this if he had just cross-checked Greig’s ribcage. Alternatively, a few light punches, a face wash, and a disapproving bear hug. If he does any of those, he will be punished rather than suspended. Rielly intended to send a message to the Leafs on another night, but he’s not the type of guy who does, and his response got away from him.
Was this a larger problem since it involved the Leafs? What’s not? Leafs supporters flooded the internet with cross-check examples, but few were actually comparable. Every cross-check in the NHL is a snowflake, and they frequently build up to the weather, although the NHL has stated that it is generally happy with how they are penalized, or not.
Rielly did not injure Greig, but when you start hunting players for goals, horrible things may happen. After the play, Rielly cross-checked a player in the head, clearly in retaliation. You cannot tolerate that.
So, while this suspension may have come from a league with a complex player discipline mechanism, there were reasons behind the number. When David Perron was punished for six games in December for cross-checking Ottawa’s Artem Zub, the suspension video basically said, “Jeez, if you’d just tried to break Zub’s ribs instead of cross-checking him in the head, maybe we wouldn’t have to suspend you.”
In terms of empty-net plays, Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele smashed Montreal’s Jake Evans in 2021 and received a four-game playoff suspension.
Now, Evans left on a stretcher, whereas Greig did not, but the act remains the same. Rielly may have attempted to hit Greig in the shoulder, but it fell to the head. Rielly messed up. Five games is a bit much, but Rielly opened the way.
And the Leafs must pay. As my colleague Dave Feschuk pointed out, the Leafs got by without Rielly last season, but that squad was significantly better than this one. They had superior puck movers and more defensively responsible forwards. The Leafs were eighth in terms of predicted goals last season; they are 15th this year.
They may be able to cope again, but the margin for mistake has shrunk. If they were better, the Leafs could go a few games without their one genuine puck-moving defenceman and not have to worry about competing for a wild-card spot with a sick Mitch Marner and John Tavares. If they were better, the Leafs could simply chalk up Rielly’s act as a selfless effort of team-building for a team whose leadership group is carrying them as much as ever this season but hasn’t produced much to show.
Instead, this suspension adds pressure to a Leafs club that had a horrible enough summer that no single transaction at the deadline could propel them to contender status, and is still balancing on the edge with stars in their prime. Regardless, the pressure would remain, and the debate would continue. The Leafs are the Leafs, so expect outsized attention, discourse, and heat. That will never change.
But if the Leafs were better, this wouldn’t be so important. They are not.
