from Damien Cox of the Toronto Star,

With 10 days to the beginning of the 2013-14 NHL season, there’s still time left to evaluate whether Rielly, at 19, is ready for the NHL.

But why wait? It’s pretty clear already he deserves to be on the team.

For those familiar with this space, of course, this might come as a surprise, and there’s no question that this space has been used to repeatedly hammering the Leaf organization for continually making the same mistake with young defencemen over and over and over again.

Well, guess what? Rielly is the exception to the rule. He’s readier than Fred Boimistruck, Jim Benning and Bob McGill were when they were rushed as a teenage trio to the NHL.

He’s readier than Gary Nylund was, or Al Iafrate, or Luke Richardson, or Drake Berehowsky, or Jeff Ware, or Luke Schenn.

read on