The question to Mike Babcock had nothing to do with the media or the pressure on one of his top players.

But he took it and knew where it was going. He knew someone asking about Morgan Rielly struggling with his skating since returning from injury was part of a bigger trend in Toronto of stories and comments and consternation about Rielly’s struggles in general.

So the Maple Leafs coach made his comments about that.

“Well, you know, it’s an interesting thing,” Babcock said. “There was a guy that used to be here named Dion Phaneuf that took all the flak for everybody. When you trade that guy, someone else gets the flak – especially when it doesn’t go good for you.

“Riels has just got to quit thinking and worrying about what anybody else says. He understands that the manager and the coach think he’s great, and his mom and dad think he’s great. I’d spend less time worrying about what anyone else gives you feedback on and just play.”

Rielly turned 23 years old today, which is young – even on this young team in an increasingly younger league. In fact, only Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Connor Carrick are younger on the Leafs.

But Rielly is tasked with the heaviest load of anyone on the roster, playing 22.5 minutes a game against other teams’ top lines, under a coach who line matches as hard as anyone in the NHL. He has the minus-22 to show for it, in yet another example of how flawed that stat can be.

Rielly is also tasked with carrying the burden of being the only highly touted, highly drafted, homegrown defenceman on a blueline that badly needs more help.

Which is – as it was with Phaneuf – where the criticism comes in.

Rielly had one of his best games of the season against the Flyers in the Leafs’ 4-2 win on Thursday night. Paired with Nikita Zaitsev for their biggest game of the year, they deftly handled Philadelphia’s best players, eating defensive zone starts and coming out at close to 60 per cent possession on the night.

They were a key factor in a Leafs victory that put the Flyers four points back and Toronto into a playoff spot – at least temporarily, until the Islanders won in overtime in Vancouver.

Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

Afterwards, Rielly admitted that what Babcock suggested had been on his mind. And they have talked about it.

Some of the negative press in Toronto was hanging over him, like a dark cloud during what has been a positive season for most of the roster. Some of Rielly’s struggles were real and some were magnified by the attention.

But he believes he is ready for that spotlight and that pressure, for the first time.

“You try not,” Rielly said of reading the headlines in Toronto. “I mean, you definitely hear stuff, you read stuff. Whether it’s good, bad – you try not to let it get to you, or affect the way you think about the game, [or] affect the way that you think about the way you’ve been playing. People are going to make comments – whether it’s fans or reporters – all season long. It’s up to you to be mentally strong enough to work hard and stay the course.

“I don’t think I’ve played my best as of late. But it’s tough. There’s nights where you might feel great and you might think you played great and the other guys get the bounces and they go their way. It’s a matter of keeping mentally strong and continuing to come to the rink every day and try to be the best you can be. And not let those nights, and those comments, affect you.”

As for needing help from teammates to shoulder that stress, Rielly said that isn’t a problem.

“I mean, I’m a grown man,” he said. “I feel like I can handle a lot on my own – I don’t need to vent too much. But we’ve got lots of guys on this team that are close, and we have lots of conversations about all kinds of stuff. The coaching staff has always been very open with us. There’s never a moment where you feel like you can’t go to somebody and sit down and talk.

“I feel very lucky to have the job that I do. You try not to carry too much stress from what people are saying. You just carry on and try to play the best you can.”

There has been a quiet confidence and maturity in Rielly from Day 1 with the Leafs. He walked in as a 19-year-old four years ago and was somehow immediately ready for the giant leap from junior to the NHL, after a brief cup of coffee in the AHL.

He’s a bright person from a good family, and he has extremely high standards for where he wants to get to as a player.

Already wearing an ‘A’, Rielly has at times seemed destined to eventually wear the Leafs ‘C’, perhaps almost literally taking over for Phaneuf in that respect.

One of his newest teammates can see why.

“It’s his birthday today, right? How old is he?” Brian Boyle replied when offered a question about the impression Rielly has made on him, after 10 days. “Jeez, 23? That’s the biggest shock to me. He’s been great to me since I came in. He acts like a veteran guy. He’s obviously a huge part of that back end.

“But he’s a leader on this team. That’s really impressive, at his age. He’s an even-keeled, easy-going guy, but he competes. But I was shocked at his age. I thought he was quite a few years older the way he carries himself. It’s impressive, really.”

A lot of what Rielly has accomplished so far is impressive. Since 2005, he is among the top 10 in young D in minutes played to start his career, averaging 21 per game before his 23rd birthday. His point production has been there, too, with an average of 32 per 82 games, despite not always getting first unit power-play duties.

But some of the criticism has merit. There are holes in Rielly’s game, and there are questions over whether he will evolve into ‘a No. 1 defenceman’ – which is sometimes code in this market for ‘one of the best defencemen in the game’.

Even if he doesn’t get there, however, he is a foundational piece on the roster. There is no shame in being a No. 2. There is no shame in needing more help, either, not on a team that has dedicated so few of its high picks in the last few years to help on D.

Rielly may be something other than the next Drew Doughty, but he isn’t a disappointment. Plenty of top-five picks have been wasted over the years on mediocre D – on Griffin Reinhart or Zach Bogosian or even Luke Schenn – but that’s not what Rielly is turning into.

He’s a good young player who simply needs to keep developing while the cast around him improves.

He needs to not become the next Dion Phaneuf, who became the scapegoat for management’s failure to put a better team around him.