Maple Leafs at crossroad with Liljegren | Ryan Reaves runs Fight Club 101 | Playoff picks | High-stakes goalie gambles | Toronto's power-play concerns + 7 more NHL goodies...
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1. Where do the Toronto Maple Leafs and Timothy Liljegren go from here?
Even with a third-pairing, right-shot defenceman more suited to the GM and coach's vision injured (off-season recruit Jani Hakanpää), Liljegren couldn't squeeze into the lineup on the club's first road trip.
The 2017 first-rounder has been leapfrogged not only by Conor Timmins (a decent puck-mover who can ill afford to keep averaging one bad penalty per game) but perhaps the bigger and cheaper Philippe Myers as well.
Yes, Brad Treliving is working the phones trying to move Liljegren and his $3-million cap hit, but if it were that easy to trade a third-pair D-man with a second-pair salary, it would've happened already.
There isn't urgency yet, but there could be soon.
Toronto is maxed out in NHL contracts and cap space, and eventually LTIR players like Hakanpää, Connor Dewar, and Calle Järnkrok will be healthy.
None of those players can be activated for nine more games, so Treliving has time.
Should another Leaf get injured in the meantime, the pressure to move Liljegren gets delayed. Maybe one of the league's other 31 teams falls victim to injuries and gets desperate for a righty (the L.A. Kings already lost a good one.) And, heck, there is still very much a chance the team needs him. He's a useful NHL-level talent, and at age 25, his best games should still rest ahead.
Ultimately, however, we don't see a long-term future here between an inconsistent — and, likely, frustrated, player — and a regime that didn't draft him.
Berube — who won his Cup with a bunch of big, nasty D-men — has made it clear that he prefers his blueliners huge. ("They get in the way," he chuckles.) Ditto for Treliving.
So, the Leafs are willing to play this out for at least a couple weeks, but at some point something must change.
Either Liljegren gets into the lineup and fights for more work, or he falls victim to a cap crunch and gets a fresh start in a different sweater.