Earlier this offseason, discussions between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Morgan Rielly took place to see what Rielly wants to do, can they agree on a salary number etc. With the salary cap flat, the Leafs do not have much wiggle room to re-sign Rielly unless one of the big four forwards are traded.
Pierre LeBrun was on TSN’s Insider Trading and stated there have already been some preliminary talks during the summer and they’ve kept that pretty quiet but nothing really concrete at this point.
LeBrun went on to say, with the new unrestricted free agent defenceman market having been set. Dougie Hamilton, Seth Jones, Zach Werenski and Darnell Nurse all got deals this past off-season for $9 million-plus.
The Leafs will likely not be able to re-sign Rielly and keep him as their own rental for a potential long playoff run. If the Leafs do miss the playoffs, one of the big four (Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Tavares) will likely be traded and then, the Leafs can decide if they want to re-sign Rielly to a long-term deal.
