Leafs’ Rielly is playing through painful injury and tells rival teams about it!

The Leafs can’t afford to lose him…

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 4 years ago
Leafs’ Rielly is playing through painful injury and tells rival teams about it!
Zuma Press

The Toronto Maple Leafs cannot handle another blow on the blue line. That’s probably why Morgan Rielly hasn’t missed a game and has decided to play through the pain of an undisclosed lower-body injury. 

“It was a pretty significant amount of pain,” Rielly told The Athletic’s Jonas Siegel. “But I did my MRIs and everything like that and there was no damage to the real important things. So it was just a matter of pain management.”

Rielly took it easy during the Christmas break and is hoping it will get better in the coming weeks. 

“We took some action over the Christmas holidays and I’m feeling much better after some minor stuff that we did,” he said. “And I think it’s just having confidence - and the pain is way lower than it was, and I’m able to just go out and play more.”

The Leafs top blue liner explained it wasn’t one specific incident that caused the discomfort, but instead “normal wear-and-tear stuff” that built up over time.

Rielly doesn’t want to focus on the pain but on helping the Leafs making it to the postseason. He managed to do just that last season when he posted a career-high 72 points and finishing fifth in Norris Trophy voting. 

But it’s not the same this year… his production has slowed down drastically: he is currently on pace for 47 points.

And now, rival teams are aware that Rielly has discomfort in his lower-body. We might see opponents take more shots at him in that area…