So far, it has been a complicated season for 2017 NHL Draft eligible defenseman Timothy Liljegren. He has
appeared at three different levels of hockey: mostly in SHL with Rogle BK, but
he has also seen time in Allsvenskan on a short loan to Timra and has (at the
time of writing) logged 12 games at the J20 level again with Rogle. He has also
been a regular for Sweden's U18 team internationally and has dealt with a case of mononucleosis earlier in the season that sidelined him for some time. Safe to
say, he has seen a bit of everything in his draft eligible season.
We received some
heat for placing Liljegren as the third best 2017 NHL Draft eligible prospect
coming out of Europe (behind Nico Hischier and Elias Pettersson respectively)
back in September and more recently still receive questions about his "stock"
as a draft eligible prospect. That has prompted us to offer an extensive
breakdown that should illuminate how we see Timothy Liljegren's game.
DECISION-MAKING
We will start this
breakdown with what we feel is the biggest question-mark in Liljegren's game
and also one of the main reasons for why we dropped him all the way back in
September. His biggest flaw this season has been decision-making. With that
said, let us continue with visual examples and their analysis.
EXAMPLE 1
This sequence starts with Liljegren actually doing a good job evading the forecheck, as he turns and
loses the Canadian forward he is left with quite some time to make a decision on how to move the puck forward. In frame III, it becomes fairly obvious
that the right option to take is to pass along the green arrow, that said there
is still a less than ideal orange path to take which would serve more just as
an outlet to get rid of the puck not necessarily move the play forward in a productive
way. Seeing as Liljegren isn't under pressure, it's not a particularly good
option in this scenario. While Liljegren does not pass immediately, he still
has ample amount of time to execute the green option pass in frames IV and V.
Yet, Liljegren fails to do so and eventually loses the puck to the forechecker.
In this sequence, we see something that has been fairly common in our viewings
this season and that is the failure to make decisions that use obvious positive
passing lanes (and simple quality options in general).
