A Deep Dive Into How the Toronto Maple Leafs Top-Pairing Did Without Rielly

Game 1 vs St. Louis

The Toronto Maple Leafs had one of their best games against the St. Louis Blues in the first of two meetings this past week. The Leafs won 4-1 despite dressing an improbably bad blue-line - at least on paper.

What actually transpired was nothing like anyone expected.

The Leafs new top pairing was very good in their first game together. Brodie played over 20 5v5 minutes, while Liljegren played 18. (stats naturalstattrick.com)l.

With Liljegren on the ice, the Leafs had 58% puck-possession and 60% of the shots.

Goals were even, scoring chances were 57% in the Leafs favor, and his Expected Goals rating was 67%.

He finished the game with one shot, no points, and 37 seconds of PP time, but no PK time.

Overall, this was a fabulous game for Timothy Liljegren. This is a player who has been scratched in each of the last two playoff seasons, despite putting up numbers that are extremely good for a 3rd pairing NHL defenseman.

This is a guy who has been, even recently, passed over, demoted and treated like the coach doesn't trust him.

And about seven years after being drafted he finally gets a shot at the top of the lineup and has an absolutely excellent game. You couldn't ask for more from him.

Game 2 vs Philadelphia

This is the game where the Leafs sleep-walked through 50 minutes, but Auston Matthews woke up long enough to score three goals and force overtime, where the Leafs won.

In Liljegren's second game on the top pairing, he didn't have such a good go of it. He did, however, get some excellent results, and overall, in the context of the full week of games, it's hard to be too critical of what turned out to be his worst performance.

Though Liljegren was praised for picking up two points, including an assist on the overtime winner, he didn't have as good of a game as he did against the Blue the game before.

In this game, Brodie played over 21 5v5 minutes while Liljegren played over 19.

Unfortunately, the Flyers possessed the puck for nearly 60% of the game when either of them was on the ice.

Liljegren finished with a 42% Corsi, while with him on the ice the shots were 12-8 for the Flyers, and worse, scoring chances were 14-6 (30%). (With Brodie on but Liljegren off, the Leafs did even worse).

Lucky for the Leafs, somehow they won their minutes 2-1 and despite their sub-par performance were graded generously in the press, ostensibly on a no-Rielly curve.

Liljegren finished this game with a 27% Expected Goals rating, while getting 4 minutes of power-play time and no PK time. As mentioned, he had 2 primary assists, one of them at 5v5 and one on the game winner in OT.

It is extremely hard to rate a game like this. When Liljegren played, the Flyers got a ton of chances and took advantage of a bad top pairing. Honestly, they seemed overmatched against their best players, and the Flyers' best players aren't even comparitively that good.

BUT, they had a ton of great results. The Leafs won, Liljegren had two points. The Leafs, outside of one ten minutes stretch where Matthews had a hattrick, played terribly. How much of that is on Liljegren? And we also routinely let Rielly get away with scoring but posting bad numbers by blaming TJ Brodie.

Overall, combine it with game one on the top pairing, and I am deeply impressed with Liljegren. Less so with Brodie. I was pretty harsh on Liljegren after this game, and I still somewhat stand by that assessment, but I think the first game, and the subsequent two games after this one, show that he is ready for these kinds of minutes, and so ultimiately I was probably unduley negative about this come at the time.

Game 3 vs Anaheim

This game was a blowout, which means that the coach does all sorts of experiments and crazy matchups, and so does the other team's coach.

It also means that score effects are a factor (which basically just means teams stop trying when the lead is big, so you should take everything about the game's statistics with a grain of salt.

An example would be that even though it was 9-2 Leafs, the Ducks had the puck more than the Leafs did overall. However, in the first period, the Leafs had the puck for 70% of the time at 5v5 and ended the frame up 4-1. Game over.

This makes it hard to assess Liljegren's performance, which is already limited to just a tiny 4 game sample. He had a 44% puck-possession rating (Corsi), and his Expected Goals rating was just 41%.

But that said, the Leafs won his minutes 2 goals to 1, and he finished the game with three assists. It's obviosuly a good game, especially when you factor in the score-effects.

Liljegren played 16+ minutes 5v5, over 4 minutes on the PP and even a minute on the PK.

Overall, a very solid performance as the Leafs #2 on the top-pairing with TJ Brodie. And watching these games, I feel that Brodie is only the #1 by default due to sonority. If Rielly was out for longer than five games, I'm betting that by the ten game mark it's Liljegren leading the team in minutes and not Brodie.

Game 4 vs St. Louis

Against the Blues for the second time, the Toronto Maple Leafs were able to win their fourth game in a row with Liljegren on the top pairing. That in itself is an accomplishment, but his overall play has been fantastic and completely paints the team's blue-line in a different light.

Against the Blues Liljegren played 18 5v5 minutes, and had a Puck Possession rating of 65%. He also played two minutes on the PP and an additional two minutes on the PK.

The shots were 14-1 when Liljegren was on the ice at 5v5. The chances were 9-3 Leafs (75%) and overall with Liljegren on the ice the Leafs had an 86% Expected Goals percentage.

That is an extremely dominant game, and the Leafs should be extremely happy with the way Liljegren played overall.

So far during Rielly's absence, Liljegren has five points, all assists, two of them at 5v5, three of the primary, and one on a game winning goal in overtime.

The Leafs won all four games, while playing Liljegren on their top pairing and using him on the power-play and the penalty-kill.

He averaged 18 minutes of 5v5 ice-time per game, while playing only a total of six minutes overall less than TJ Brodie, who led the team in ice-time without Rielly. Overall, Liljegren averaged 22:16 over the last four games.

With Liljegren on their top pairing, they had 52% puck-possession and 59% of the shots. Scoring chances were even (but remember, in the Flyers game they were slaughtered and the Ducks game was a blow-out) and high danger scoring chances were in the Leafs favor with 61%.

They outscored the opposition 6-3, which is pretty good considering Leafs goalies failed to post a .900 save percentage when he was on the ice over these last four games.

The expected goals rating was 50.21%, which is better than it seems when you consider how bad it was in the Flyers game, and how unusable the stats from the Anaheim game were due to it being a blow-out.

In the full context of everything I've written here over these past four games, I think the Toronto Maple Leafs should be extremely happy with the way Timothy Liljegren has played during his promotion. When Rielly comes back, Brodie should move to the third pairing and stay on the left side.

Timothy Liljegren should become the Leafs new top-pairing right-side defender. He earned it.