Will Morgan Rielly start the season with the Maple Leafs?

Maybe as the head coach insists it doesn’t mean much at all.

After all, when Randy Carlyle was asked why during the first scrimmage of training camp, he paired up Captain Dion Phaneuf with Morgan Rielly on defence, he smiled, and said, “It gives you something to talk about.”

But then again maybe it is a sign of things to come, sooner rather than later.

“I’m not going to check into it too much,” Rielly said. “But it’s nice to play with a guy of his caliber. Hopefully I will have a chance to play with him again in the future.”

Rielly was Toronto’s 1^st round pick – 5^th overall – in 2012. The smooth skating defenceman didn’t look out of place in the first scrimmage, scoring a goal.

For the 19 year-old Rielly, his poise was apparent right from the opening faceoff.

“The word that you use, poise, fits him very well,” said Phaneuf. “He’s got real good patience and he passes the puck at an NHL level. He passes it hard. He passes it crisp. He passes it flat. He’s got a very bright future ahead of him.”

Rielly isn’t old enough to play in the American Hockey League. He can play up to 9 NHL regular season games without losing a year on his NHL contract.

It’s a dilemma the Leafs have – one that will likely see the 6-foot, 183 pound blueliner play in many of the 8 exhibition games the Maple Leafs have scheduled.

“I have a lot to prove still,” said Rielly, who picked up 54 points in 60 games in the Western Hockey League last season. “I’m not too comfortable just yet playing pro hockey. I think it’s a gradual process. Each day that goes by I think I’m improving.”

Carlyle made it clear on the first day of camp, if Rielly wasn’t going to play key minutes he would be better served to go back to his Western Hockey League team in Moose Jaw.

“We don’t envision him playing sparing minutes,” said the Coach. “His minutes have to be somewhere in excess of 12 to 15 minutes. Does he have to play every game? No, I don’t think he has to play every game. But I think what he has to do is he has to show growth.”

But if the young defenceman continues to impress, it will make the Leafs decision that much harder.

“He’s got to play to his strengths and that’s (skating and providing offence) his strength,” said Carlyle. “He has to continue to do those things into the next day. It’s a continuing evaluation of a young defenceman trying to cut his teeth in the NHL.”

Right now on the blueline Phaneuf, Carl Gunnarsson, Jake Gardiner, Paul Ranger and Mark Fraser appear to be certainties.

The longer Cody Franson misses from camp mired in a contract dispute, the better the odds are of Rielly making this team.

“He was a lot of fun to play with,” said Phaneuf. “He’s a smart player that moves the puck well. For his second camp, he’s doing a really nice job.”

He hopes to be the first teenage defenceman to play for the Leafs since Luke Schenn did it in 2008-09.

“I’m not that surprised (by the goal he scored) because of where he was taken in the draft,” said Carlyle. “When you have elite level junior players selected where he is selected, you suspect he has some skill set that shines above other players and that’s (his goal in the scrimmage) is a prime example."