Timothy Liljegren
The ongoing development of the situation for Timothy Liljegren has actually been quite surprising beacuse he clearly is one of the Leafs four best defenseman, and shouldn't be a spare part on any team, let alone this one.
That said, Liljegren looks like he'll get into the team's game on Wednesday against them LA Kings.
Even just last season, Liljegren has made great strides in his game as he posted a career-high in assists with 20, along with tying his career-best in points with 23 in just 55 games played. In addition, he had appeared to progress in his development enough such that he was often elevated to the second pairing with Jake McCabe, and even at times to the top pairing with Morgan Rielly.
On top of that, Liljegren also saw time on the second power play unit along with brief glimpses on the penalty kill, giving him valuable experience playing in all situations. Overall, he has almost 200 NHL games of experience winning his minutes. (All stats from naturalstattrick.com and NHL.com)
However, things have not gotten off on the right foot for him thus far heading into the 2024-25 season. After an underwhelming performance during the preseason, Liljegren has found himself in Berube’s doghouse as he was no longer among the starting six on defense for the Leafs.
In fact, he has been a healthy scratch so far after a week into the season and hasn’t received any opportunity to at least show once again what he could provide to the team. As a result, Liljegren has found himself amidst swirling rumors of potentially being traded, which could be happening any time soon now if the situation continues to escalate.
Liljegren could be gone by the end of the month, but team's almost always regret losing players like him, so I would expect the Leafs to give him a chance to redeem himself before they do anything rash.