Timothy Liljegren
The Toronto Maple Leafs won the draft lottery two years ago and selected potential franchise player Auston Matthews. Afterwards, fans of the team looked at the young talent and concluded that all they needed was a blue-chip blue-liner. Some even went so far as to suggest one final year of tanking in order to aquire Swedish prospect Timothy Liljegren.
The Leafs instead went out and, on the backs of nine or so rookies, made the Playoffs. They picked 17th in the draft and no one was expecting anything interesting – except maybe the long awaited trade of James van Riemsdyk.
Leading up to the draft, people talked about how Liljegren – previously thought to have a chance at going first or second overall – was going to drop due to his missing most of the season with mono, which led to his poor play at the World Juniors. We joked about it, but none of us really thought he was going to fall to 17th.
But he did. The most improbable pre-draft scenario of dreaming Leafs fans actually came to fruition. The Leafs selected Liljegren 17th overall.
Now, it’s easy to follow the narrative that he only dropped because of the illness and assume that the Leafs got a bonus top-five (or better) pick. While no doubt that played a role, it’s just a little too convenient and easy of a narrative for me to fully trust.
Liljegren could potentially be the Leafs Duncan Keith or Kris Letang – a homegrown franchise defenseman. But he’s still pretty raw and he did miss a huge year of development. This year, he could play in the AHL or the NHL or even go back to Sweden. There is just know way to know right now.
The Leafs say all the right things as far as managing expectations go, but he could still blow everyone away at camp and make the NHL. The Leafs have shown they will play kids if they deserve it.
But it’s highly likely he’s still a year, maybe more away. Bottom line: the Leafs got a crazy good prospect, at a position they had no right to expect to get him, and that is nothing but good news.
Timothy Liljegren is the second best prospect the Leafs have. The only reason he’s not number one is that Kasperi Kapanen is way closer to being an NHL regular.