As Keefe came in as the new head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs — right away he told Morgan Rielly and Tyson Barrie that they’d be starting games together. It was imperative that they start the games off strong, and get the team going.
That trend continued, and it even turned into both players coming on while there was an offensive zone face off. Fast forward to a few days ago — a Rielly-Barrie pairing is now real.
“We’re looking forward to the challenges that are coming,” says Rielly regarding him and his new defense partner, “we want to make it work — I think we both said that, so were gonna keep talking and keep trying to improve.