TORONTO -- Todd McLellan has been impressed with Morgan Rielly's ability to play multiple roles and log big minutes at the World Cup of Hockey.
That's why, with star defenceman Aaron Ekblad likely lost to injury, McLellan is prepared to lean on the 22-year-old Maple Leaf blueliner when North America meets Sweden in a critical preliminary round game Wednesday.
"He's arguably been one of our best, he has the ability to play both sides of the puck," said McLellan. "Offensively he's been tremendous, he's defended well and he's taken huge minutes on.
"I had a high appreciation personally for the way he played the game (before the tournament), but it's gone way up. Now that you are around him day in and day out, he's a tremendous player."
North America was without Ekblad in Monday's 4-3 loss to Russia and he is unlikely to dress against the Swedes. Jacob Trouba replaced Ekblad in the starting six but it was Rielly who took over Ekblad's minutes, logging a game-high 23:07 of ice time, including over seven combined minutes on both sides of special teams.
McLellan wouldn't confirm a report after Tuesday's 20-minute team skate that Ekblad has a concussion, saying only that he is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury, but the 20-year-old blue liner didn't skate with the team.
"Would we love to have Aaron Ekblad? Absolutely. Might we have him? Maybe. If we don't, we feel good about the group we have.
"If Aaron's not ready to play he's not going to play."
Rielly says him and his teammates talked about what they need to do as a unit against Sweden in what will be a must-win game for North America, and that he's up for any role McLellan decides.
"When we lose a guy like Ek (Ekblad) we have to rise to the challenge. We got to talk about how we going to do things," Rielly said.
"As (defencemen) we have to be ready to take on that role and step up."
North America gave up four second-period goals in its loss to Russia, but McLellan wasn't phased on Tuesday and wouldn't blame it on the loss of Ekblad. He highlighted that all four came in a span of 5:14 and believes his team was the better of the two despite the final score.
"Yesterday when we looked at the game tape with Aaron out, there was a six to eight minute lapse where we didn't perform well as a team, not necessarily positionally. It was units of five that didn't perform well."
Rielly scored once and had a game-high seven shots on net against Russia, but he wasn't thrilled with his overall performance. He blamed himself for Russia's third goal and refused to say that his own goal to make it 4-2 before the second period finished was enough to make up for it.
McLellan disagreed with the young defenceman.
"That's a team goal," he said.
"But that's a sign of leadership if he's announcing responsibility for it. That's maturity. That's him being mature and leading."
While Rielly's role with the team became bigger as the game against Russia moved into the third period, other players became noticeably absent.
Forwards Dylan Larkin didn't play a shift in the third while Jonathan Drouin played three shifts and served a bench minor for too many men.
With the tournament potentially on the line with a loss, McLellan says he will shorten the bench against Sweden if it has to be done again.
"We won't be afraid to narrow it right down and run the guys right out of gas, whoever's playing," he said.
