Has anyone noticed a trend in Leafs Nation since Mark Hunter was given the green light for the Maple Leafs drafting?

Great success!

Marner was an excellent pick, Matthews was a given at number one, but Timothy Liljegren at 17 is absolutely mind blowing! This kid can play some puck, and he’s lightening quick which bodes well with the rest of the team. An offensive dynamo that needs some work on the back end, but could certainly be a top pairing right-handed defender for the Leafs of the future.

What a huge score it is the Leafs being gifted Liljegren that far down the draft.

Of course most scouting reports and rankings vary, there was one thing that was consistent in majority of these mock drafts and that was the ranking of Liljegren. He was a top ten in just about every list that my eyes feasted upon, and he fell to 17?! Did other teams General Managers and scouts forget that Timothy was still available? Maybe they had their hearts set on a player as they didn’t expect him to fall so low, whatever the case; I’m still astonished and it’s days later.

Thankfully Hunter and the rest of the Leafs management/scouting team were on the ball and wasted no time picking up the 18 year old Swedish defender.

Obviously a big reason that his stock fell in this year’s draft was because he got sick with mono and missed a chunk of the season and was slow returning to the game as you could expect.

But to drop from a top 5 ranking and ending up at 17 is nothing shy of glory for the Nation, Leafs Nation of course.

Liljegren isn’t the easiest name to type off the get go, personally I look forward to Don Cherry saying his name on Coaches Corner.

Timothy hovers around 6 feet tall and 195 pounds; he’s got a fortune of upside, especially for a player picked that low in round one. He’s a smart player with the puck and wastes little to no time breaking out of the zone whether he’s skating it out or passing it. He has excellent puck moving skills but could use some more work on his defensive game.

Without pumping the kids tires too much, I really want to drill in the fact that he’s extremely agile and calm with the puck, he’s been compared to Erik Karlsson on how he skates and controls the play from the back end. He’s certainly not shy to jump into the rush after moving the puck up and I assure you his speed will stand out. He’s easily the fastest defenseman in this year’s draft and quite possibly the fastest skater of all the 2017 draft picks.

Even though Liljegren’s defensive skills are not as quality as his offensive skills he’s still very strong on the puck in his own zone and works hard against bigger and stronger players in the SHL. His wrist and slap shot are accurate and he’s certainly not shy to let it rip as he’s a player who racks up an absolute ton of shots for his team.

I’m thrilled with the Leafs first round pick this year, not only that, but the boys made the playoffs and still managed to get a player that without question should have been drafted in the top 10.

Hope everyone else is as pumped as I am about next season, perhaps some trades to go down to really heat things up!

Thanks for reading, enjoy your week!

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