Morgan Rielly stresses the importance of Maple Leafs focusing on details
Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Morgan Rielly emphasized that he and his team must remain focused on the details of their game, amid a March slump. Mired in a 1-4-1 drought that included tough losses to the Florida Panthers and Ottawa Senators, the Leafs find themselves in third place in the Atlantic Division with a few…
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Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Morgan Rielly emphasized that he and his team must remain focused on the details of their game, amid a March slump.
Mired in a 1-4-1 drought that included tough losses to the Florida Panthers and Ottawa Senators, the Leafs find themselves in third place in the Atlantic Division with a few weeks remaining in the regular season. Though they currently sit four points back of first place, they are level with the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Senators are now four points behind Toronto in the division standings.
Following the morning skate on Monday in the lead-up to their game against the Calgary Flames, Rielly spoke about how important it is to pay attention to the details in their game.
“ There’s always details, that’s what the game comes down to,” he said. “Little things: stick position, puck battles in the corner, box outs, odd-man rushes for and against. All that stuff just comes down to details and we’re always focused on those things.”
This remains consistent with what captain Auston Matthews said after Saturday’s game where he felt that the details in his team’s game are not where it needs to be. On a night when they had a prime opportunity to create some separation from the Senators, they instead let a hungrier team dictate the pace and now find themselves behind the eight-ball in terms of their chances of the division title.
Head coach Craig Berube shuffled the lines once again after his attempts to shake things up over the weekend proved to be ineffective, which included Scott Laughton being moved to the ‘identity line’ with Steven Lorentz and Calle Jarnkrok.
“ You gotta get that battle level and that urgency level up. The guys understand that. They’re not very happy right now, which is a good thing,” Berube said about the Leafs needing to play with urgency more often. “ That’s really the message. The message, too, is we’re right there. We’ve got two games in hand here. We’ve got to take care of our business and start with tonight’s game only and focus on that and go from there.”
The Leafs will make up those games in hand this week beginning with their tilt against the Flames before commencing a busy stretch of three games in four nights from Wednesday to Saturday. Rielly says that he and his teammates need to work together if they wish to overcome the slump and get their game back on track.
“ There’s the overarching themes of being more competitive, executing at a higher level. Those big things are also important,” he said. “As a group, we know what we’re going through. We know what we’re dealing with. We’ve had a chance to kind of sit with it and talk about it. It’s a good opportunity to overcome some adversity at a very important time in the season and move forward.”
