The Life of Reilly, if your name is Mike Reilly the hockey player, means a long end-around to land in Ottawa with the Senators at age 26.
Reilly, a Minnesota native who was a regular healthy scratch with the Montreal Canadiens, was about to head out the door for the Bell Centre Thursday to watch his Habs play the Tampa Bay Lightning – and then his phone rang.
It was Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin telling Reilly to pack for Ottawa instead. The phone rang again, this time the National Capital welcome wagon represented by Senators GM Pierre Dorion. Oddly enough, the Senators face the same Lightning at the Canadian Tire Centre Saturday and Reilly will be on Ottawa’s blueline.
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“I’m definitely excited and I don’t know if I was shocked or not but when I heard I was coming here – I know they’ve got a young team that’s actually had a pretty good year,” Reilly said after his first Senators practice Friday.
“When we played them that one game, we didn’t overlook them – a fun group to be a part of it seems like,” he says. “I want to take advantage of the opportunity.”
There was a chance the six-foot-one, 195-pound defenceman might have joined the Senators years ago. Dorion says he was among those trying to land Reilly when he was a sought-after college free agent defenceman with the University of Minnesota in 2014-15.
As a 21-year-old, Reilly had a pretty big year as a junior with the Gophers – producing 42 points in 39 games to lead the team in scoring.
In the end, Reilly signed with the local Minnesota Wild, no surprise there. Over two seasons, from 2015-17, Reilly played 57 games as a third-pair defenceman, moving on to the Canadiens for a fifth-round pick in February of 2018.
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Reilly did get a chance to play with the Habs, seeing an average time on ice of 18:41 in 57 games last season (three goals and 11 points), but hardly played in the last 20 games of the season and was a regular healthy scratch this season, seeing action in 14 games.
“Something changed,” was how Reilly described his altered status, although he took pains to thank everyone in the Canadiens organization for the chance to play there.
The Senators, desperate for help on defence, gave up minor league forward Andrew Sturtz and a fifth-round draft choice in 2021. Reilly is under contract for 2020-21 as well (at $1.5 million), which is interesting. It means the Senators view him as possible insurance next season with such veterans as Mark Borowiecki, Ron Hainsey, Dylan DeMelo and Cody Goloubef eligible to become unrestricted free agents.
With Hainsey still on injured reserve and DeMelo just back practising with the team after breaking a finger, Reilly couldn’t get here soon enough. Nikita Zaitsev is still day-to-day with a leg injury, meaning Ottawa is missing three veteran D-men; four if you include Christian Wolanin, out since training camp after requiring shoulder surgery. He could be back next month.
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Reilly will get to play in Ottawa, including on the power play now that prospect Erik Brannstrom has been sent back to AHL Belleville – a move made following Thursday’s trade.
“Hopefully, I can take advantage of the power play opportunity here,” Reilly says. “I think that’s a strength of my game. Shoot the puck and be deceptive. And just go out, have fun and play hockey.”
Reilly likes to join the rush and can move the puck. His play away from the puck is a work in progress.
“My defensive game has been questioned by a lot of people but I think it’s come a long way,” Reilly says. In Montreal, head coach Claude Julien helped him be more aggressive as a defender, he says.
Julien’s counterpart in Ottawa, Senators head coach D. J. Smith, is pleased to have a warm NHL defenceman, given what has been going on with his roster. After a pretty good month of December, the Senators have been a leaky ship recently, giving up a ton of chances in a 6-3 loss to Florida Thursday, Ottawa’s third straight defeat.
“He’s certainly going to help us break out of our zone,” Smith said of Reilly. “He’s a guy that’s been at a couple of stops now and I think now might be the time for him — an opportunity to play and see what he can do.
“He’s played in the National Hockey League and with our situation in the back end, he’s certainly going to help us.”
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Reilly might end up with DeMelo as a partner, but DeMelo won’t be back until Tuesday at the earliest. In the meantime, he could play with Goloubef, one of the few familiar Senators – the two share the same off-season trainer in Toronto. Reilly also played with veteran Ottawa forward Tyler Ennis briefly with the Wild.
“It’s a little nerve-wracking coming in because I don’t know too many people but hockey guys are really similar with whatever team it is,” Reilly says. “And they understand how the business works.
“Guys get traded, or move up and down. I feel like the guys are a great group in here, I’ve heard good things.
“Nate Thompson (of the Canadiens) played here a couple of years ago. He texted me and said it was a good group in here. That made me more at ease.”
Not a lot of those Thompson-era Senators remain. And more will be gone in the next month or so as the drumbeat sounds toward the Feb. 24 trade deadline. Dorion, whose cell phone broke down in Germany as he was trying to close this deal, has his phone working again. It will be busy.
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