Morgan Rielly can chuckle about it now.
About the memories from playing against Detroit Red Wings great Pavel Datsyuk, who goes into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday night as part of the 2024 class of inductees.
Rielly recalled his rookie season of 2013-14 in the National Hockey League.
“The only memory that jumps out,” Rielly said on Friday morning after laughing, “is Randy Carlyle (the Leafs coach at the time) aggressively trying to keep me off the ice when (Datsyuk) was on the ice.
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“I was fine with it. It was a little demoralizing though. He’s an incredible player and one of those guys that everyone idolizes in how he plays.
“You could talk about it all day. His strength on the puck, his defensive ability and all that stuff. Just a really special player.”
Rielly can take comfort in knowing that Datsyuk spent his 953-game career in the NHL, spent entirely with the Wings, making opposing defencemen look silly. That’s when Datsyuk had the puck. Without it, he was just as effective.
When fellow Leafs defenceman Chris Tanev was with the Vancouver Canucks, he played against Datsyuk several times before the latter’s last NHL game in 2015-16.
Similar to Rielly, Tanev had a funny response when he was asked about defending against Datsyuk.
“Probably trying to change as quick as I could when I saw him out there and our D coach yelling at me to stay out there,” Tanev said.
“He was definitely a one-of-a-kind player and so talented. And as a Red Wings fan growing up, he was definitely someone I looked up to.”
Coaching against Datsyuk wasn’t much fun either.
“A great 200-foot player,” Leafs coach Craig Berube said. “This guy checked really well. I don’t think people realize that he had such a great stick and mind out there, but he was a great offensive player too, a great all-around player.”
Every so often former Leafs coach Mike Babcock, having coached both Datsyuk in Detroit and Mitch Marner in Toronto, would say that Marner had some of the qualities that Datsyuk had.
“Mitch is a really good 200 foot-player too, kills penalties, anticipates extremely well, has a great stick,” Berube said. “I agree.”
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