Confirmed with Link: Leafs Trade: Liljegren to San Jose for Matt Benning, 3rd and 6th

[thewave]

Only thing they have in common is their both are Swedish and sucked playing in Toronto, it’s irrelevant what Lilly does elsewhere if he can’t do it here. Both Brodie and Lilly gone in a calendar year, how lucky are we……….

Doesn't the fact we can't develop good D or Cs or Gs scare the crap out of you? It does me man.

 

[rumman]

Hopefully Benning pushes Timmins down

How hard can that be? Timmins next D on the trading block………

 

[thewave]

So the last domino falls of the Leafs "future elite D" of Liljegren, Holl, Sandin and Dermott.

Lets keep turning the page on this organization's horrific track record of developing D.

Exactly. Dubas left an unmitigated disaster. That guy very likely could have been something good developed in other hands.

 

[rumman]

Doesn't the fact we can't develop good D or Cs or Gs scare the crap out of you? It does me man.

Leafs develop good players, but usually trade them away, this is not that case, Lilly was useless here, glad he and his 3 mil overpayment are history………

 

[rumman]

Really gotta question why they even signed him to that deal

It was a stupid move, but Tre fixed that by trading his ass outta town……..

 

[rumman]

Always liked Jim Benning, he’s a little old now, but Liligren sucks, so it’s a good trade

Wonder if Fred’s available too?

I'm not going to pull punches.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Indeed…….

 

[rumman]

Sharks fan here. He got injured last year and it seemed as though he was still knocking the rust off with us. Had been sat recently for Jack Thompson, a young RHD that we called up, but then got back in the lineup the past few games. He was our bottom pairing RHD and we have the worst defense in the league, so I wouldn't have much of an expectation from him. Sounds like just a straight cap dump and you needed a RHD in return for the deal (not unlike the Ceci deal we did with Edmonton in the offseason).

Curious about why you're all down on him. I know Toronto is not known for having good defenders in general, but what are his struggles and are there things that he does well? I wouldn't expect we'd be getting a player without issues back given how little we gave up.

Sadly you’ll find out soon enough that Lilly is scared of his own shadow when opposing forwards get physical, guy can’t be trusted very little upside………

That pick will come in handy at the deadline too when we load up, as will the cap space.

Some takes here remind me of a kid who’s spent his allowance two days before he gets it. Have any trade deadline acquisition ever worked out in helping the Leafs find success in the playoffs in the last decade?

 

[rumman]

We're still at 23 players so someone will have to get waived to activate anyone.

Myers will be one of them if they don’t wave Benning……….

 

[rumman]

Mark Hunter you stunk at your NHL job and now can't find another one

The guy owns a very successful OHL franchise, pretty sure he’s busy enough, rich enough, and content enough without adding the title of NHL GM to his resume. Your pettiness speaks volumes, and it’s really funny he’s in your head so much………

Good trade. On the bright side for the stat nerds, he's finally a top 4 defenseman!

Hope he enjoys the weather, don’t see him thriving even on a bottom feeder……….

 

[francis246]

They now need to have Timmins on the bottom pair because none of the other 3 can handle or pass the puck.

This is just hyperbole. This year the bottom pairing hasn’t really had an issue moving the puck.

And in your other post you talk about puck movement is your main reason why you’re mad about the Liljegren trade. Liljegren is great at that during the regular season and absolutely dog shit at it in the playoffs when there is a forecheck. So that point is moot. He can’t move the puck effectively when he’s being pressured and results in bad turnovers. Like I said he cost us game 3 last year, a game where we had momentum because he couldn’t handle a bit of pressure behind the net and sent an absolute grenade to Edmunson. There’s countless other examples of this in the playoffs during his time and hence why he was constantly scratched in prior years.

 

[francis246]

Benning will be buried in the minors. It’s a straight up salary dump of Liljegren. Not many teams around the league are dumping mobile 25 year old right shot D men for cap space. Leave it to the leafs. Obviously Liljegren did something to piss off management. His giveaway against Florida costing them the series losing OT goal in the ‘23 playoffs might be a factor. That being said it was a 5 game series and the leafs were never going to win.

His give away in ‘24 playoffs that cost us game 3 against Boston is another factor.

 

[NCoRe]

Not a fan of this, though I understand the situation. We've locked in with our guys on D and thats a choice they made, but I would've chose differently. Still couple of picks are decent

 

[Fonzieleaf]

Pretty good haul for him. He had a lot of promise early in his career but he just couldn't figure it out here. Guys like Timmins and Myers are ahead of him in the lineup so he's being regularly scratched. No point in him sticking around and taking up cap. Also, Hakanpaa is set to come off the LTIR as early as tomorrow so they need the cap space for him to be activated. Probably Dewar and Mermis as well.

Good luck to Lily in San Jose.

EDIT: Also, we have acquired 1.75 million in cap space with the loss of Lily and the addition of Benning (which I know nothing about).

 

[Nineteen67]

Much needed cap space.

Wish him well.

 

[Niagara Bill]

Not a fan of this, though I understand the situation. We've locked in with our guys on D and thats a choice they made, but I would've chose differently. Still couple of picks are decent

For him to be a success in the NHL, he has to skate much better to move with the puck. He was too easy to forechek, too weak ìn front of net, too weak along the boards. He had same problem as R Sandìn.

 

[Nineteen67]

Benning has good advanced stats and terrible real stats.

I like the trade because it cleared some cap space for next year (or this year if we use it).

Am slightly worried Liljegren will figure it out, but good job for now.

What do the advance stats say? He was OK in Nashville but nothing memorable.