The Morgan Rielly saga in Toronto has been an incredibly bumpy one over the last few months; rumours of him being traded have been circulating for weeks, but now it remains unclear.
The 32-year-old defenseman has played for the Toronto Maple Leafs his entire NHL career and has been incredibly productive during that time.
But as time has gone on, it seems as though his future on this team has been uncertain at best.
Rielly is headed into year five of an eight-year-deal worth $7.5 million AAV per season, and with the salary cap going up, that figure slowly starts to look not as much of an overpayment.
That said, he has a full no-move clause for his next two seasons until it converts into a partial no-move clause where there is a 10-team no-move clause for his final two seasons.
This means Rielly has control over his destination for the next two seasons, and NHL insider Darren Dreger said Rielly's agent submitted a four-team Western-based team list he would accept a trade to.
Rielly is easily the worst contract on the Maple Leafs roster in terms of allowing him to be moved, and per his production, he has a substantial cap hit, and moving him will result in the Toronto Maple Leafs getting some cap flexibility moving forward.
With that said, the packages the Maple Leafs might be getting back are maybe less than to their liking.
Chayka won't move Rielly for less than fair value even with the cap tight
The reality is, Morgan Rielly is a good player and would be a potential bounce-back candidate acquired by any team, including the Toronto Maple Leafs.
If fair value is not established in a trade, Chayka feels no obligation to move the player or have his hand forced in making a trade he does not feel comfortable making.
Even though the salary cap situation for the Toronto Maple Leafs after their expensive free agency is not ideal for future moves, they still are not in dire straits to move Rielly for the sake of moving him.
This front office has been incredibly aggressive, but calculated in the way they have made moves over the last few months.
Rielly under a new system could return some of his value, and that value might be more than what the Leafs will be getting back from dealing him.
The last thing Chayka wants to do is give away Rielly for free, or actually pay to have him moved off the roster; in a booming salary cap world and not COVID, this is how things play out. Cap relief is coming every year from here on out; the cap is climbing several million each year, so Rielly's deal ages better each season.
Every move Toronto wants is waiting on Rielly's money to clear
It is going to be really tough for Toronto to make moves from here on out without there being a subtraction somewhere on the roster; they have the second-least amount of cap space in the NHL at the moment, and moving someone like Rielly is going to probably happen.
Teams are allowed to retain salary, but in terms of wiggle room, it will be incredibly tough for the Maple Leafs to make additions without some money getting shipped out of the roster, and Rielly might find himself the low man on the totem pole.
The Leafs have been in plenty of rumours surrounding superstar defenseman Zach Werenski, Erik Karlsson, Ryker Evans, or guys like forward Jared McCann, Claude Giroux, etc.
That $7.5 million gives Chayka the needed space to go out and make a splash or even just wait and add at the deadline this year, where if the Maple Leafs are in a spot where they feel comfortable buying, they can do so.
Other players on Toronto have large cap hits as well, but they are seen more as the solution than the actual issue, whereas Rielly was pretty awful by his standards last season, putting up 36 points in 78 games, being a mediocre power-play quarterback and not the number one defenseman the Maple Leafs needed.
But if that is his floor, teams with cap space might be looking at him as a player to acquire for not many assets and as a leader/buy low candidate.
Where will Morgan Rielly play next season?
Also read on Hockey Patrol :
Brandon Duhaime had the perfect response to Friedman getting his Leafs deal wrong