Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

27

Timothy Liljegren

Toronto Maple Leafs Defense

Seventeenth overall in 2017, and 51 assists in 196 games.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2019-20TOR11011-5200020.010:18
2020-21TOR2000+1200010.015:06
2021-22TOR6151823+1514100796.316:24
2022-23TOR6761218+2430010847.117:55
2023-24TOR5532023+316001624.819:40
2024-25 so far
Career196145165+38641112286.117:29

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

55 games, 3 goals and 20 assists for 23 points, 16 penalty minutes, 19:40 a night and plus-3, with 1 game-winner. He took 52.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 916 minutes, the 70th percentile, and his ice went 39-35 against an expectation of 41.43-37.75.

Two goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and three goals of goaltending above them. Twenty-three points in 55 games is the best rate of his career.

The Finesse Game

94 attempts at a median of 51 feet with 72 per cent of them from beyond forty and 5 per cent from inside twenty, 61 of those on goal, converted at 4.8 per cent against a career 6.14 across 228 shots.

Fifty-one career assists against 14 goals in 196 games. He moves the puck quickly and cleanly and takes the first option; there is more skill here than a third-pairing role uses, and twenty assists in 55 games is the evidence.

The Physical Game

He is 6-1 and 200 and took 16 penalty minutes.

Sixty-four career penalty minutes in 196 games. He is an ordinary-sized defenceman who defends with stick and position rather than weight, and there is very little net-front work in his game.

The Intangibles

Seventeenth overall in 2017 by Toronto, five seasons, one organisation, and 65 points in 196 games.

A career plus-38 in 196 games — the best rate of anybody on this blue line. He was a first-round pick who did not hold a full-time place until his third NHL season and has been on the right side of the ledger in each of the four seasons since.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 916 minutes

Expected goals
52.3%
70th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
49.1%
48th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 39 for, 35 against. Expected: 41.4 and 37.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
57th
Numbers
70th

The two rank him within 13 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 916 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2023-24

The club
TOR took 52.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.3% — 0.2 above the club he did it on.
The role
Third pair, 916 minutes at five-on-five — 49th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Auston Matthews59.0%48.9%56.1%
William Nylander50.3%53.3%53.1%
Tyler Bertuzzi52.1%52.4%57.0%

59.0% together, 48.9% for him apart and 56.1% for Matthews apart. He was worse away from Matthews, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Matthews did.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

94 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 72% from beyond forty.