Morgan Rielly reiterates desire to stay with Maple Leafs as offseason uncertainty approaches

Morgan Rielly has been through the thick of it all with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He was a rookie when the team routinely hung out near the bottom of the standings, he was looked at as a veteran from a younger age than most, once Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner arrived on the scene, and he stuck out all the highs and the lows. The 2025-26 season was a rough one for Rielly, who finished with only 36 points and routinely struggled in his own zone, and with four more years remaining on his current contract, he’s somebody who may be shopped around when the summer comes.

The topic has come up to Rielly a couple of times in the past year, and each time, he’s strongly reiterated his desire to remain a Maple Leaf for his whole career. That was no different on Thursday morning during the Leafs’ locker room clean out.

“I’ve always wanted to stay,” Rielly assured a room of reporters. “I still wanna stay. I love playing here, I love being a Leaf.”

When asked about the possibility of being asked to waive his no-move clause, Rielly acknowledged that it’s something that could happen but didn’t change his stance on where he’s at in terms of preferences.

“It’s a challenging thing to answer when those conversations haven’t happened yet,” Rielly said. “But, you know, after a year like this, after any year, but especially one like this, as an athlete, you have to be prepared for that. You know, it’s not the first time that it’s crossed my mind.”

Rielly said that there’s a multitude of reasons regarding why the Leafs ended up where they did, but said that the lack of consistency was a big reason they plummeted so hard and missed the playoffs.

“We had a good road trip [going into the Olympic break] and then we came back and we weren’t able to continue it. I think that there were other points during the season where we just weren’t able to be consistent enough to keep things going in that direction…I think whenever you have a year like this, there’s a number of things that need to be improved. I think the consistency was one of those things.”

The longtime veteran’s Leafs season might be over, but Rielly still wants to play hockey before hitting the links this summer. He confirmed his desire to play for Team Canada at the upcoming World Championships, where a pair of former Leafs general managers will be in charge of selecting the roster.