There likely wasn’t a single person in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ circle between media and fans who thought that Conor Timmins would have any chance at cracking the lineup to start the season, let alone making a good case to retain that spot even as bodies get healthy.
That isn’t an indictment of his play at all. He was just the team’s third-string puck-mover who was stuck behind Morgan Rielly and Oliver Ekman-Larsson for power play minutes and had some struggles defensively to go with it. It felt like he was the team’s easiest waiver candidate after two years in a Maple Leafs uniform riddled with bursts of potential but struggles with consistency and durability, but it’s November 7th, 2024, and he’s still around. And in a development I’m not sure anyone was expecting, it’s his defensive play that’s keeping him there.
Timmins has only three assists in 12 games on the season and hasn’t gotten any time on the power play to start the season. Instead, he’s been primarily playing with Simon Benoit on the bottom pair at 5-on-5 and has been taking reps on the team’s second penalty kill unit. He’s fourth among Leafs defencemen in penalty kill time-on-ice (TOI) per game at 2:21/g, skating alongside Benoit in that role whenever Chris Tanev and Jake McCabe need a break, and his Corsi-for rating is third among Leafs defencemen at 53.4%, so he’s been passing both the eye test and the fancy stat test.
Coming into training camp this season it really felt like Timothy Liljegren, who has since been traded to the San Jose Sharks, had a leg up on Timmins for the #6 defenceman spot, but head coach Craig Berube evidently didn’t see what he needed to from Liljegren, which is why he’s a San Jose Shark now and the latter is still in Toronto. Both seemed to be met with the message “You’re likely not going to be seeing any power play time this season unless injuries, so you’re going to need to find a way to contribute otherwise” and Timmins prevailed. He’s been thinking the game in an entirely new way in 2024-25 and has been using his size to effectively absorb the forecheck, resulting in fewer plays involving getting hemmed in their own zone, and he’s been excellent on the breakout, using his upper-tier vision to feed the forwards with clean stretch passes. It’s an area their defensive corps notably lacked toward the end of last season and were desperate for an upgrade in.
“We know that he has upside… It would be a really great development for them if this guy ended up being a decent third-pair (D).”@RealKyper, @jtbourne & @SamAMcKee on Conor Timmins becoming a positive for the #LeafsForever blue line.
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📺 https://t.co/SqK7M993Jz pic.twitter.com/u4E5kbT8qd— Sportsnet 590 The FAN (@FAN590) November 6, 2024
Timmins’ effectiveness in this newfound defensive role is why he’s on the team now and Liljegren isn’t, full stop. While there was certainly an argument to be made that Liljegren was a better player with more ice time, there wasn’t a world where he was going to take top-four minutes away from any of Rielly, McCabe, Tanev, or Ekman-Larsson. Not playing those top four minutes and skating alongside a defence-first player like Benoit is going to force you to change your game to suit the role, and ultimately, Timmins was able to do it while Liljegren continued to struggle. And it’s not just a matter of him being a body on a unit, the penalty kill has legitimately been thriving to start the season. It’s currently sixth in the NHL at 86% on the nose, following a shutout win over the Boston Bruins in which the penalty kill was a perfect 6-for-6. The team has adapted swimmingly to new penalty kill coach Lane Lambert’s system and seem to be smothering their opponents much more, forcing them to keep their plays to the outside much like we’ve seen opponents do to the Maple Leafs’ power play.
We’re getting to the point where the Maple Leafs are going to have a decision to make with Timmins when Jani Hakanpaa is activated from the injured reserve. On one hand, scratching him in favour of Hakanpaa would allow them to keep the shutdown pairing of McCabe-Tanev together and would make for an extremely punishing pair with Benoit. On the other hand, scratching Benoit instead would allow the Leafs to keep that puck-moving presence in the lineup. That said, it would also likely require some adjustments to the defensive pairs to keep the lefties playing with the righties, something to the effect of this:
Rielly – Tanev
McCabe – Hakanpaa
Ekman-Larsson – Timmins
Either way, the Maple Leafs have some options they likely weren’t anticipating to have now that Timmins has proven he can stick in the lineup. It’s worth noting that Timmins himself has battled some injury issues over the course of his career, so there’s a good chance that all parties will be getting reps one way or another, but as it stands, the above pairings might be their best look going forward if they want to maintain a healthy mix of physicality and puck-moving on their back end.
