It’s the first Sunday of 2020 and Morgan Rielly is getting ready to join his teammates for the Easter Seals skate, where he’ll sign autographs, pose for selfies, and interact with young Maple Leafs fans.



Practice ended only a few minutes earlier and Rielly, now decked out in a black sweatshirt, black pants, and a black baseball cap, is about to head back out onto the ice. He grabs a drink of water and moves gingerly to his dressing room stall to lace up his skates again.



The real story of Rielly’s seventh season in Toronto isn’t that he’s had a trying year; he’s still on pace for a respectable 47 points. It’s about what he’s been willing to do to try to help his team.



“He’s obviously a really big part of the team, he’s a leader on the team,” Auston Matthews said of Rielly, and while players grind through injuries daily, “I think his has been a little more serious than just the...