At the Toronto’s annual Coaches Open House on Saturday, Kyle Dubas discussed Morgan Rielly volunteering to move to PP2 to accommodate Tyson Barrie, the possibility of 11 forwards / 7 defensemen lineups next season, and the team’s need to evolve its mindset when it comes to grit and toughness.
He started the year off and did one of the most selfless things that I have seen: In mid-November, he was on the first power play, and we had acquired Tyson Barrie the summer previous. Tyson got off to a fairly slow start with us — he hadn’t produced and hadn’t scored — and as someone who was facing unrestricted free agency in the new year, in a new city with a lot of expectations on him, he started to really struggle.