Prospect Info: 2018/19 Marlies & Prospects Thread Part V

[Morgs]

Sandin easily would be a top-10 defensive prospect. There is simply no reason (other than Leafs) to have Liljegren anywhere near the top-10, or even top 20. He is intelligent. He is skilled. He is great at moving the puck. His defensive game and physical game are better than it was believed when he was drafted. But his production is crap, and he hasn't been improving. Now that Hollowell is playing for the Marlies in the playoffs I wouldn't be surprised if he quickly passes Liljegren.

I'd be shocked if Hollowell passes Liljegren.

Lily is going to end up as Josh Morrissey, a two way stud.

 

[stickty111]

Sandin easily would be a top-10 defensive prospect. There is simply no reason (other than Leafs) to have Liljegren anywhere near the top-10, or even top 20. He is intelligent. He is skilled. He is great at moving the puck. His defensive game and physical game are better than it was believed when he was drafted. But his production is crap, and he hasn't been improving. Now that Hollowell is playing for the Marlies in the playoffs I wouldn't be surprised if he quickly passes Liljegren.

Maybe Hollowell passes him offensively, but very unlikely defensively.
Lilly is arguable the Marlies best defensive defenseman.

 

[stickty111]

I'd be shocked if Hollowell passes Liljegren.

Lily is going to end up as Josh Morrissey, a two way stud.

As I said in the GDT, Sandin is ahead offensively, and Lilly is ahead defensively.
Why are we using point totals to pick on Lilly? If I can get a 30-35 point d man who is terrific defensively, and can transition the puck. Thats a top 4 d man and a homerun at #17.
Honestly the only reason Lilly's production isn't higher is because he is on PP2.

 

[biotk]

There isn't a scout alive who considers Liljegren a great defensive D prospect. Yes, he has been better defensively than advertised, but he was advertised as a terrible defensive D. Sandin has been the one getting the massive minutes since the injuries and callups because he is both better defensively and has been far better offensively. Liljegren is great in transition although he takes a lot of risks. He might put it together next year and become a capable second pairing D several years down the road. He might not and end up playing a couple dozen NHL games on the third pairing. He was a gamble of a pick - high risk/high reward. You can keep on saying that we shouldn't be using point totals for Lilly, but Lilly himself disagrees. He thinks his point totals should be higher.

Hailey Salvian wrote about Sandin and Liljegren for the Athletic in early March. What she said is in line with every scout I have heard talk about Liljegren on twitter or elsewhere (and matches what I saw when watching him play many AHL games last year).

"Liljegren, a more offensive defenceman (compared to Sandin), is in his sophomore season and has nine points (three goals, six assists) through 28 games."

"It seems some scouts’ opinions on Liljegren have trended more negative than optimistic this season, mostly because of turnovers or mistakes he makes in the game."

“There are issues in his game that would prevent him from being on an NHL trajectory right now,” Pronman said. “There is some work to do on decision making and he has to become more impactful all around.”

Nilsson (his agent): “He just needs to mature a little bit and realize the highlight moves you see every time you turn Twitter on isn’t how you play every single minute of a shift,” he said.

"Liljegren said he is happy with his play this year but feels his point production should be higher. He said he thinks he has “a couple more levels” he can get to before the end of the season."

Keefe said that a player is ready to move up when they are taking over games and neither of them had been doing so at that time. But Sandin has been taking over game after game since. Liljegren has not moved up the levels he felt he would.

Liljegren has 3 consecutive injury plagued years. His development is not where it should be. He is a capable AHL D, but he is no Rod Langway. Maybe he puts it all together next year in the AHL and can play some NHL games the following year, but if not then the Leafs lost the gamble when drafting him.

 

[stickty111]

There isn't a scout alive who considers Liljegren a great defensive D prospect. Yes, he has been better defensively than advertised, but he was advertised as a terrible defensive D. Sandin has been the one getting the massive minutes since the injuries and callups because he is both better defensively and has been far better offensively. Liljegren is great in transition although he takes a lot of risks. He might put it together next year and become a capable second pairing D several years down the road. He might not and end up playing a couple dozen NHL games on the third pairing. He was a gamble of a pick - high risk/high reward. You can keep on saying that we shouldn't be using point totals for Lilly, but Lilly himself disagrees. He thinks his point totals should be higher.

Hailey Salvian wrote about Sandin and Liljegren for the Athletic in early March. What she said is in line with every scout I have heard talk about Liljegren on twitter or elsewhere (and matches what I saw when watching him play many AHL games last year).

"Liljegren, a more offensive defenceman (compared to Sandin), is in his sophomore season and has nine points (three goals, six assists) through 28 games."

"It seems some scouts’ opinions on Liljegren have trended more negative than optimistic this season, mostly because of turnovers or mistakes he makes in the game."

“There are issues in his game that would prevent him from being on an NHL trajectory right now,” Pronman said. “There is some work to do on decision making and he has to become more impactful all around.”

Nilsson (his agent): “He just needs to mature a little bit and realize the highlight moves you see every time you turn Twitter on isn’t how you play every single minute of a shift,” he said.

"Liljegren said he is happy with his play this year but feels his point production should be higher. He said he thinks he has “a couple more levels” he can get to before the end of the season."

Keefe said that a player is ready to move up when they are taking over games and neither of them had been doing so at that time. But Sandin has been taking over game after game since. Liljegren has not moved up the levels he felt he would.

Liljegren has 3 consecutive injury plagued years. His development is not where it should be. He is a capable AHL D, but he is no Rod Langway. Maybe he puts it all together next year in the AHL and can play some NHL games the following year, but if not then the Leafs lost the gamble when drafting him.

Maybe your just listening to Scott Wheeler too much.
Ofcourse Lilly would say his point totals can be higher, he can't say i'm great and don't need to improve on anything.
Sandin and Lilly have the nearly the same amount of even strength time, and its not because he is better defensively, but Sandin gets PP1 minutes which raises his ice time.

The games and the underlying stats all show Lilly playing really well against tough competition.
Jeffler and Mark Rackham have all said great things about Lilly. I will go by information from people that actually see the games, over those who watch sometimes.

 

[biotk]

Maybe your just listening to Scott Wheeler too much.
Ofcourse Lilly would say his point totals can be higher, he can't say i'm great and don't need to improve on anything.
Sandin and Lilly have the nearly the same amount of even strength time, and its not because he is better defensively, but Sandin gets PP1 minutes which raises his ice time.

The games and the underlying stats all show Lilly playing really well against tough competition.
Jeffler and Mark Rackham have all said great things about Lilly. I will go by information from people that actually see the games, over those who watch sometimes.

I will go by the people whose assessments of Liljegren as a prospect have turned out to be far more accurate. That hasn't been me, or Jeffler or Rackham or any of his other big cheerleaders no matter how much I wished it would be. I said a year ago that I would have the intellectual integrity to admit that I was wrong about Liljegren at the end of this season if that turned out to be the case. It has turned out to be the case. Love the player. Loved him long before he was drafted. Love the way he plays. Hope like hell that he puts it all together, and his current issues are from lack of consistent and uninterrupted development time.

But reality is reality. Liljegren is no defensive stud. In no serious conversation should that even need to be stated. His bread and butter is supposed to be his offensive ability. Liljegren is dead last in PPG among D from draft class in the AHL - despite some of them being drafted far later than him, some of them having little offensive talent, and some of them not getting PP time. His PPG is behind almost every D on the Marlies despite playing big minutes (Rosen, Sandin, Borgman, Subban, Marincin - and Nielsen and LeBlanc - neither of whom finished the season on the Marlies and the latter spent half the year on the Growlers). His PP time has been reduced because he has always (first year and this year) been mindbogglingly non-productive on the PP. He gets very few shots through. He is easy to read.

 

[nobody]

Once again, dont want to repeat myself but Timothy Liljegren is a fantastic prospect for us. This kid has missed a boat load of development time and hadn't had any kind of linear progression. He's the type of guy that I expect to take a massive jump in growth at some point in the next two seasons. Right now he is trying to work on his consistency and even though he still has some creativity in his game, you can clearly see he has absolutely zero swagger that is needed and was previously possessed when he was younger. You can tell that he's been a guy that's gone through a ton of shit already as a pro hockey player and he's trying to gather all the pieces.

Sandin on the other hand thankfully hasn't had to deal with as much adversity and injury problems. His growth has been fairly linear and trending upwards with a sharp curve. I am glad he has come in and relieved Timothy of the hype as the big dog/prospect in the pool.

I think we will see Sandin in the lineup next season and I believe he should become a very good top 4 option soon and a potential top pairing guy in a few years.

Timothy right now is projecting to be a bottom pairing dman which is completely okay. If he puts it all together though he can quickly make a leap to top 4.

 

[Fogelhund]

I see Liljegren's ceiling at this point, as maybe a late developing Stralman at best.... if he can stay healthy, and puts in the work. He isn't the player we had hoped for, but that doesn't mean he won't be useful with some patience. On the other hand, Sandin is better than we had originally expected.. D can be unpredictable, and non-linear in development.

 

[DanM]

I see Liljegren's ceiling at this point, as maybe a late developing Stralman at best.... if he can stay healthy, and puts in the work. He isn't the player we had hoped for, but that doesn't mean he won't be useful with some patience. On the other hand, Sandin is better than we had originally expected.. D can be unpredictable, and non-linear in development.

I still think Lilly will surprise.

How has Hollowell looked?

 

[biotk]

I see Liljegren's ceiling at this point, as maybe a late developing Stralman at best.... if he can stay healthy, and puts in the work. He isn't the player we had hoped for, but that doesn't mean he won't be useful with some patience.

I agree with this. I see Stralman as his absolute, very unlikely to attain, ceiling, and that would be many years in the future. I see the most likely comparison as Kylington - a 6/7 in 2021 - except lower offensive numbers, while better defensively and in transition.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Wow... a bit harsh on Liljegren I'd say.

He's definitely ahead of where Stralman was at this point in their careers. Even with the injuries Liljegren is like a year and a half ahead of Stralman's development. He's also ahead of Kylington... he's already better defensively and I'll put my money on Liljegren catching up production-wise in the next two years.

Maybe he doesn't start next year there, but he's shown he's good enough for the NHL. He could play a full time Dermott role right now and probably not look out of place.

 

[LeafsOHLRangers98]

Sandin easily would be a top-10 defensive prospect. There is simply no reason (other than Leafs) to have Liljegren anywhere near the top-10, or even top 20. He is intelligent. He is skilled. He is great at moving the puck. His defensive game and physical game are better than it was believed when he was drafted. But his production is crap, and he hasn't been improving. Now that Hollowell is playing for the Marlies in the playoffs I wouldn't be surprised if he quickly passes Liljegren.

How is his production crap?

18 year old season: 2nd highest PPG ever for defensemen in the AHL to play a full season

19 year old season: 16th highest PPG ever for a 19 year old in the AHL to play a full season

Slightly lower PPG in year 2 than year one but a much heavier workload and tougher matchups.

I know it might not look like it because Sandin is blowing everybody in history out of the water right now, but basically everybody ahead of Liljegren at age 19 is a top pair guy in the NHL, at the very least a solid top 4.

It's extremely tough to produce in the AHL consistently as a teenage defensemen and we are lucky to have two of the best ever that look like top 4 guys.

Be patient with Lily and just enjoy him when he gets here.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

How is his production crap?

18 year old season: 2nd highest PPG ever for defensemen in the AHL to play a full season

19 year old season: 16th highest PPG ever for a 19 year old in the AHL to play a full season

Slightly lower PPG in year 2 than year one but a much heavier workload and tougher matchups.

I know it might not look like it because Sandin is blowing everybody in history out of the water right now, but basically everybody ahead of Liljegren at age 19 is a top pair guy in the NHL, at the very least a solid top 4.

It's extremely tough to produce in the AHL consistently as a teenage defensemen and we are lucky to have two of the best ever that look like top 4 guys.

Be patient with Lily and just enjoy him when he gets here.

The only thing with Sandin is that he is given some nice opportunities to put up those numbers. I am not so sure Liljegren is, or ever did, really receive the type of opportunities Sandin did, even last year. Sandin also has a lot more defensive work than Liljegren does at this point to make the NHL, but that is to be expected out of an 18 year old defenseman drafted 29th overall... That's mostly just to temper the expectations of Sandin being in the NHL next year, because realistically, he shouldn't be. I'm not even sure he should receive a call-up from the Leafs mid-season, unless he totally blows people out of the water AND there are a fair number of injuries.

 

[horner]

Korshkov is in the Russian training camp for the World Championships in May.

Would rather have home here.

He better make there team .

Want to watch this kid play.

 

[RoadWarrior]

The only thing with Sandin is that he is given some nice opportunities to put up those numbers. I am not so sure Liljegren is, or ever did, really receive the type of opportunities Sandin did, even last year. Sandin also has a lot more defensive work than Liljegren does at this point to make the NHL, but that is to be expected out of an 18 year old defenseman drafted 29th overall... That's mostly just to temper the expectations of Sandin being in the NHL next year, because realistically, he shouldn't be. I'm not even sure he should receive a call-up from the Leafs mid-season, unless he totally blows people out of the water AND there are a fair number of injuries.

It’s easier to learn positioning and defence than offensive creativity. Sandin will improve his all around game very quickly and be ready for a top 4 role in the NHL within a year. He could be a top pairing guy.

Liljegren is highly mobile but lacks creativity. His max upside is Noah Hanifin in 2 or 3 years.

 

[hullsy47]

As I said in the GDT, Sandin is ahead offensively, and Lilly is ahead defensively.
Why are we using point totals to pick on Lilly? If I can get a 30-35 point d man who is terrific defensively, and can transition the puck. Thats a top 4 d man and a homerun at #17.
Honestly the only reason Lilly's production isn't higher is because he is on PP2.

all I know is Keefe will have some good young beauties to work with when he takes DJ Smith's job next year

 

[4thline]

Liljegren is experiencing Kapanen-itis.

When Kap was 19 in the AHL his visible impact and production looked poor in comparison to Nylander, so he got written off a low upside B prospect despite how his play projected in a wider context. This fanbase is very "All or nothing" when it comes to prospects, they're either Blue Chip elite 1st line/ top pair locks or meh, and the normal "A" type lower high end of the prospect ranking (25-70 league wide) where players project comfortably as top 6 forwards/ top 4 D with lower probability top line/ top pair upside doesn't seem to exist.

That's where Kap was, that's where Liljegren is.

 

[Duke16]

I will save more serious judgment on Liljegren until next year. You know, when the rest of his fellow 2017 Draftees are playing in the AHL and no longer in junior.

 

[Rielly4]

Liljegren has NHL level talent and skating. The problem is his defensive game...He makes a lot of mistakes and gets beat a ton. He will have to clean that up to play for Babcock.

How about that Bracco though? He is an absolute superstar in the AHL imo he will be better than Kap and AJ.

 

[Orfieus]

To me anyone who is really down on Liljigren are people who only stat watch. Yes Liljigren had a slow start that lead into a very serious foot injury (I'm not convinced he is 100% yet). He controls play in the defensive zone, makes great outlit passes to forwards and if there is no pass to make he will simply shake his booty around 2-3 guys and skate the puck out of the zone. Honestly tho, for all we know Liljigren got the Rielly treatement, where the team asked him to focus on his defence over his offence (I forget the year but I don't even think Rielly was on the PP, definately not on PP1.

The kid is turning 20 in 8 days. We have a legit NHL Dman, so lets focus on the positives and see what type of player he develops into

 

[RoadWarrior]

To me anyone who is really down on Liljigren are people who only stat watch. Yes Liljigren had a slow start that lead into a very serious foot injury (I'm not convinced he is 100% yet). He controls play in the defensive zone, makes great outlit passes to forwards and if there is no pass to make he will simply shake his booty around 2-3 guys and skate the puck out of the zone. Honestly tho, for all we know Liljigren got the Rielly treatement, where the team asked him to focus on his defence over his offence (I forget the year but I don't even think Rielly was on the PP, definately not on PP1.

The kid is turning 20 in 8 days. We have a legit NHL Dman, so lets focus on the positives and see what type of player he develops into

NHL talent definitely. However he needs to minimize the Gardineresque mental mistakes.

 

[Field of Dreams]

In today's NHL that's a franchise D lmaoo

Probably would be 20 years ago as well

 

[dubplatepressure]

Maybe Hollowell passes him offensively, but very unlikely defensively.
Lilly is arguable the Marlies best defensive defenseman.

This in itself is a shocking revelation. It reminds me of the early Babcock days with Morgan Rielly transforming him into an all-around D from a just an OFD through usage.

 

[Knies iT]

This in itself is a shocking revelation. It reminds me of the early Babcock days with Morgan Rielly transforming him into an all-around D from a just an OFD through usage.

Except that’s not the case. Since Lilj isn’t producing people are trying to pump his defensive game to make him look better. He’s absolutely not the best defensive defender on that team. It’s shocking to me how you could arrive at that conclusion. They’re basically following a select few Twitter posters’ data to form scouting reports.

He’s improved his game moderately in all areas. He’s a bit stronger, a bit quicker, and a bit better with his risk mitigation in the D zone. Still very much a work in progress and still makes the most mistakes of any top 4 Marlies D man.

 

[Orfieus]

NHL talent definitely. However he needs to minimize the Gardineresque mental mistakes.

If that is the worst complaint then that is a compliment. Gardiner is a really good Dman