With Jami Hakanpaa and Connor Dewar set to return from injury soon, the Leafs were under the gun to make a move.
The Timothy Liljegren era in Toronto has come to an end.
On Wednesday, the Toronto Maple Leafs announced that the club has traded the Swede to the San Jose Sharks.
In the trade, the Leafs add blueliner Matt Benning, a conditional 2025 third-round pick, and a 2026 sixth-round pick. The Sharks hold the Edmonton Oilers and Colorado Avalanche’s third-round pick in 2025 and Toronto’s will receive the earliest of the selections as a condition of the trade.
Liljegren appeared in just one of ten games for the Maple Leafs in the 2024-25 season and struggled to find a consistent role in the lineup. For the majority of the season, the 25-year-old has been skating as the seventh or eighth defenseman on the totem pole. With newly signed defenseman Jani Hakanpaa nearing his return from a knee injury and becoming eligible to be activated off the long-term injured reserve as soon as November 1, the team was seeking moves to accommodate the transaction.
The defenseman signed a two-year, $6 million contract with the Leafs in the offseason.
Liljegren, speaking to media for the final time as a Leaf earlier today, spoke about the mental toll it was taking for the player to be out of the lineup.
Liljegren's lone appearance this season came against the Los Angeles Kings where he recorded 13:55 of total ice time and blocked two shots. The defenseman was brought into the organization when he was selected by the Maple Leafs with the 17th overall pick in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft.
He has spent his entire NHL career with the Toronto organization, split between the AHL's Toronto Marlies and in the NHL with the Maple Leafs. The former first-round pick helped the Marlies win their first Calder Cup in the 2017-18 season. In six seasons at the NHL level, Liljegren 210 regular season and postseason games combined, recording 14 goals, 52 assists, and 65 points.
In Benning, the Leafs get a 30-year-old right-handed defenseman with 452 NHL games of experience. He carries a salary cap hit of $1.25 million. The Leafs clear $1.75 million in salary cap room after completing the deal.
