Breaking: Maple Leafs star man extend contract set to receive $2MM–$3MM…….

Other than blue liner Timothy Liljegren, the Maple Leafs don’t have many pending restricted free agents to be concerned about. Even though he played at a respectable 34 points per game and averaged a career-high 19:40 per game the previous season, he was one of several Leafs who struggled in the postseason and recorded the lowest even-strength possession stats of his young career.

His regular season was also marred by injuries, restricting him to 55 appearances. also missed a considerable portion of the stretch run due to an upper-body injury, and also missed weeks due to an ankle injury sustained during the first half of the season. Sadly, it’s starting to become a recurring story for the first-round selection from 2017 who hasn’t yet reached 70 games in a season.

This complicates his future with the company and, should he decide to stay, his contract negotiations this summer. In light of this, Joshua Kloke of The Athletic reports on Wednesday that “there hasn’t been much dialogue between the Leafs and Liljegren’s camp” in regards to an extension for the free agent.

It’s unclear if it indicates general manager of the Maple Leafs Brad Treliving is considering transferring his signing rights elsewhere. It’s evident that Toronto would rather keep its early-offseason cap flexibility for improving its defense, goaltending, and depth scoring in free agency, as well as the decreasing possibility of moving star winger Mitch Marner to another team. Simply put, Liljegren doesn’t appear to be a top priority for the Leafs front staff, which is perhaps a telling indication of the role they plan to play for him in the upcoming season and beyond.

Regardless of how they handle Liljegren, they find themselves in a difficult situation. His mistakes are obvious, and he frequently gives off the impression that he is unsure of himself or uneasy playing the ball in his own zone under pressure—a problem that has dogged a few Toronto defenseman during the Auston Matthews era.

However, this season he has made significant progress in creating offense in a bigger role, and the Leafs have routinely had the superior share of possession quality at even strength while Liljegren is playing. Though his ability to control shot attempts has completely declined this season, falling below 50% for the first time since his brief NHL debut five years ago, he still has a career 54.6 xGF%, including a 55.1% mark this season.

His contract shouldn’t be overly expensive or need a long-term commitment, and it shouldn’t be too big of a deal that he becomes eligible for arbitration this summer after missing a lot of time due to injury. However, to cross the finish line, it would probably cost a $2MM–$3MM salary hit, which is a sizable sum of money for a team that will need every bit of extra contract space they have this summer to make a serious playoff run.