Toronto Maple Leafs: Will Timothy Liljegren Be a Top Pairing Defenseman?

Timothy Liljegren’s debut season for the Toronto Maple Leafs displayed many strengths along with noticeable weaknesses.

The final thought Timothy Liljegren placed in my head during his season with the Toronto Maple Leafs was that he is really solid for a young defenseman, but there were a few weaknesses that caught my eye.

Yes, he is solid for his age, but is he really a top-defenseman for a contending team like the Maple Leafs?

According to the stats he is, but since many of his minutes were either 3rd pairing, or with Auston Matthews, we can’t solely rely on the measurements, as encouraging as they may be.

The idea behind a top-pairing defenseman is that they can eat minutes, show an ability to recover from shifts fast, reliable defensively, play in all situations, and provide solid offense for the position, and most of all, come out on top in puck-possession, shot and scoring chance shares.

Depending on the tendency of the specific defenseman, the later of the expectations would vary. Overall, Liljegren is widely considered to be a talented defenseman who can carry the puck and can impact the game with his offensive skillset.

Here, I will look at the strengths and weaknesses Liljegren currently has and whether or not he projects to have a solid career, preferably with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

 Strengths

Liljegren has solid skating, which really helps the Maple Leafs as he would quarterback the powerplay on the breakout.

He can keep up with the opposition, and his offensive upside could give the Maple Leafs another puck mover on D outside of Morgan Rielly.  Although he isn’t as aggressive or as talented in this regard as a truly elite offensive threat.

He is capable of making a great first pass to jumpstart the rush that the Leafs love to use to attack, but since he isn’t elite at retrieving pucks, he likely won’t be able to fully harness this power.  Statistically, he thrives at carrying the puck out of the zone and struggles when passing it.  

He can skate away from trouble, and he can lead the rush on his own. He is very adept at carrying the puck out of his zone, or  into the offensive zone successfully.

From his draft year, via Bob McKenzie of TSN, he was known to:

Scouts say his offensive game is far more developed than his defensive game. He is an elite skater, both in terms of speed and agility, and adept at running a power play. He is seen as both a puck mover and an offensive point producer. No one is suggesting he’s the next Erik Karlsson, not by any means, but scouts say he has some of the same qualities and, therefore, has the potential to be projected as a possible top pairing defenceman in time.

Another thing that Liljegren was praised on was his intelligence, and in his debut season, it was noticeable. He was not scared with the puck and analyzed his options before he made a decision. Yes, sometimes the decision wasn’t the best, but more often than not he made the right one. His confidence should only increase as he may find himself in a top-four role of an elite team this season.

Timothy Liljegren is an offensive defenseman, to no one’s surprise, and he scored at a 50 point clip without much (if any) power play time.  With more power-play time, I could see him putting up around 65 points per season if he continues to work on and polish the skills he does have while focusing on fixing his weaknesses.

Liljegren’s top strengths would be:

• Puck moving
• Agility and skating
• Passing ability
• Shot
• Overcomes lack of strength with smarts to be above average defensively

Speaking of weaknesses…

Projection For Timothy Liljegren and the Toronto Maple Leafs

This is the tough part…

Timothy Liljegren led the Leafs in all on-ice stats last season.  When he was on the ice, they had the highest percentages of puck possession, shots, scoring chances and expected goals.

When he was paired with Mark Giordano, they were lights-out – getting 95 scoring chances while allowing just 71, and playing to a 61% Expected Goals rating.

The actual statistical performance of Liljegren was better than 93% of the NHL’s defenseman. As a rookie, that suggests he’s easily going to become a top pairing defenseman.

However, you must factor in that he played with teammates who were much stronger than the competition he faced overall, and this could perhaps mean that his success was as much a matter of the coach putting him in the right position to win his minutes vs him being absolutely dominant.

And when you look at his play down low in the zone, and his struggles with puck retrieval, you know he will likely never be the kind of super-star #1 defenseman in the vein of Victor Hedman or Cale Makar.

But who is?

Liljegren HAS to learn on the fly and fast. While I do see that he can make adjustments, he has to work on what he cannot control with on the fly adjustments which would be strength and… Yeah, mostly strength. The Toronto Maple Leafs cannot afford to give him time to take a slow approach, and his offseason should focus on this, as well as coverage in front of the net.

If he can do that, he’s easily going to be a very good #2, which is a top-pairing guy.  But that’s his absolute ceiling for now.  More likely, he grows into an above average second pairing right defenseman who puts up great numbers when paired with the correct players and used in the right situations.

His skating is top-notch, he can quarterback a powerplay, he can move the puck reliably and he gives the opposition something to worry about on the powerplay as he has a wicked shot.

As it stands now, he is an elite 3rd pairing option, a decent second pairing option, and a bad first pairing option.  If he adds a puck-retrieval element to his game, and gets more successful with the breakout passing, he could potentially turn into an elite player, but most likely maxes out as a very good complimentary piece.

Whether that is on the first or second pairing really depends on how much strength he can add.