Look, the Maple Leafs and their defence is going to be a topic around here for a while. It’s the obvious spot for the team to try and improve next season. One guy who isn’t going anywhere is Morgan Rielly. Rielly’s a legitimate top pair defenceman but there is one unfortunate truth with him: the Leafs have been lit up over the past two years at 5-on-5 when he’s on the ice.



It’s a bit of a funny thing because Rielly’s had an awful 5-on-5 save percentage in back-to-back seasons. He put up a .914 save percentage in 2015-16 against a .923 when he was on the bench. Seventeen defencemen who were on the ice for at least 500 5-on-5 shots against had a save percentage that was between .007 and .011 worse than their team did when they were on the bench. Collectively, they were .009 points of save percentage worse than their team was when they were on the bench.



Betting against that continuing is almost a good bet, if...