The Toronto Maple Leafs are looking to find a new destination for Timothy Liljegren after he was rendered a healthy scratch in the regular season opener against the Montreal Canadiens.
“Sounds like Toronto is working to find a landing spot for Timothy Liljegren,” Friedman wrote in his latest 32 Thoughts article. “He’s down the depth chart, not a situation anyone is happy with.”
Given how little cap space the Maple Leafs have at the time of filing, it is fair to assume that any potential move involving Liljegren will likely take place before the end of the month. Jani Hakanpaa, Connor Dewar, and Calle Jarnkrok being on LTIR helps get the team above the cap for the time being but once they return, the Leafs would have to free up some cap space, no matter what.
Liljegren was among the names that were speculated to be shipped out well before this latest report from Friedman due to him carrying a $3 million cap hit and never realizing the height of his potential. While he showed some flashes of his potential at times the underlying metrics can paint him in a positive light, those bright spots have been overshadowed by moments where he looked overwhelmed, made numerous blunders, or experienced an injury to halt whatever momentum he ever gained.
This past training camp in particular has seen his spot in the pecking order being usurped by Conor Timmins, Marshall Rifai, and Philippe Myers, who all had strong showings during the preseason. Hakanpaa’s eventual return also dictates that Liljegren was going to be on the outside looking in, which would make it difficult to justify healthy scratching a blueliner making $3 million.
Liljegren himself can sense that the writing may be on the wall for his time in Toronto.
“Everything can happen, right? I’m just trying to take it day by day. I know we got to make some changes, so we’ll see where it goes,” Liljegren said to reporters last week. “Trying to earn my spot. Haven’t really had that much flow in my game. I think it’s been OK, but not my best hockey.”
It remains to be seen when and where Liljegren will end up should this trade come to fruition, but it sure seems like the clock is ticking on his tenure in the Blue and White. There will certainly be fans disappointed that the team is potentially giving up on a former first-round pick who has shown spurts of his full potential while others will be happy to have the cap space freed up to make room for the players that better fit how Craig Berube wants his team to play.
