Toronto Maple Leafs: Timothy Liljegren On Tear With Marlies This Season

Timothy Liljegren has been as sharp as possible; before, and after being recalled by the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Before being called up to the Toronto Maple Leafs, Liljegren was the Marlies highest scoring defenseman with 13 points in 24 games.

After practising with the big club for a few days, the 20-year-old was sent back down and continued his dominance.

Liljegren has fives points in his last four games as a defenseman in the AHL, which shows just how much control he has on the game.

“Obviously you feel more confident when you got the lead,” says Liljegren after their 7-2 win against the Belleville Senators on Saturday night (via MarliesTv). And after that win, the Toronto Marlies are 2nd in the North Division, with a record of 18-7-2-1.

Even Greg Moore, the Marlies head coach who secured his first career AHL win on Saturday had nothing but praise for Liljegren (via MarliesTv). “He distributes the puck well, he exits well — he gets our game transitioning in a real positive sense. He gets the puck in the hands of the right guys, and collects the points.”

The 17th overall pick in the 2017 draft is about to pass his AHL career high in points. His best season came in 2017-18, where he had 17 points in 44 games. Liljegren is almost past that this year with almost half of the games played.

Where did it go ‘right’ for Liljegren?

In the last few years, Liljegren has struggled with decision making in his own end. That has changed this season though as he’s more confident with the puck and is able to move it up the ice a lot better.

It’s also helped that Sheldon Keefe was his coach since he joined the team. He and Kyle Dubas are on the same page in terms of development and what they want from the player. Keefe then executes and tries to get the best out of Liljegren.

But he’s struggled a lot with injuries from the time he was drafted to part of this year. This season, Liljegren has only missed three games, compared to 65 in the last two seasons.

And in the middle of all of that, the Toronto Maple Leafs were trying to develop him. It’s not always an easy process to develop a player who’s been injured for parts of two seasons on and off.

But for now, the Toronto Marlies and Liljegren are only focussed on one thing and that’s staying healthy. It’s gone very well so far this season and he’s taken a lot of strides to becoming a better defenseman.

For my sake and the Marlies sake, I hope Liljegren can stay healthy, be effective on the ice and maybe if all goes well, get called up to the Toronto Maple Leafs by the end of this season, or make the team next training camp.