The Toronto Maple Leafs have traded defenceman Timothy Liljegren to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for defenceman Matt Benning, a third-round draft pick in 2025, and a sixth-round draft pick in 2026.
Liljegren was rumoured to be on the trade block since before the season started. We discussed why the Sharks are an ideal trade destination for Liljegren a couple of weeks ago, and that speculation has come to fruition. Despite signing a two-year deal with the Leafs on June 30, 2024 with an AAV of $3M, Liljegren only skated in one game for the Leafs this season.
With the Leafs right up to the salary cap, freeing up Liljegren’s $3M would help a lot, and they’ve facilitated that with the trade today.
Bringing in veteran depth defender Benning is a solid replacement for Liljegren in utilization only. Liljegren is a legitimate NHL defenceman by all accounts but fell out of favour with the coaching staff in Toronto. It didn’t make sense to have Liljegren spend most of his time in the press box, whereas Benning can play that role and it’s not a big deal. Adding two draft picks is also a nice get for a guy who wasn’t playing games.
On the other hand, the Leafs have sacrificed defence depth in exchange for cap flexibility and a couple more picks in the upcoming drafts, and for a win-now team only time will dictate whether that was the right call or not.
The Leafs now have a cap hit of $90,793,218, with $5,524,999 in their LTIR pool, and $3,006,562 of usable cap space to play with. Because they are over the salary cap and using LTIR to have a cap compliant roster, their deadline cap space will not increase unless further moves are made.
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