During last night’s Toronto Maple Leafs win over the Vegas Golden Knights, Travis Dermott had to leave the game after playing the last shift in the first period. Not having gotten any info from the team or reporters, it was speculated that Dermott was injured or benched ala Justin Holl. Both of those theories were proven to be wrong, except one of them was right.

It turned out Dermott had left the ice to get x-rays done on his leg after blocking a shot. The Leafs have some infrastructure for x-rays in house and it only took half a period before Dermott’s scans came back as negative and he re-joined the team. And you thought teams were fast at replacing skate blades.

I did wonder who had replaced Dermott next to Morgan Rielly for those 17 minutes or so. In those nine shifts for Rielly, he played with Liljegren for four shifts, Jake Muzzin for a shift and a half, one on the power play, one with Rasmus Sandin, and half a shift with TJ Brodie. So Rielly was shared by the remaining four defensemen pretty well, but he got the most minutes with the only true righty in Liljegren. In fact, Liljegren has played with Rielly for at least a few minutes in his last three games, mostly on the penalty kill.

Liljegren is now 17 games into his NHL career and he’s played about 190 minutes so far. The first couple seasons that was as the seventh or sixth defenseman on the third pair where he didn’t look too good, and then 60 minutes this season where he’s played a game on the second pair and three on a carefully deployed third pair. Amalgamating all those games, he’s ended up as a 53% shot and expected goals player, and a 44% goal differential (a lot of that is on ice save percentage, which has swung massively in the other direction this season where he’s 75% on goals).

Putting all that together, where do you see Liljegren positioned in, say, March of this season right after the Olympics?

Which lefty is Liljegren playing alongside by March 2022?

With Rielly239
With Muzzin193
With Brodie43
With Sandin645
With Dermott37

Various Leafs and Branches

Leafs

Big 3 score, Vegas doesn’t, Leafs win 4-0 | by: Seldo

Marlies Catch Up: Two wins a row against the Senators | by: Species

We haven’t had a night where the Big Three all scored, so I thought I would show their goals.

2014.

2015.

2014 -> 2016.

2012 -> 2016.

Around the NHL (Trigger Warning: SA/Hazing)

Duncan Keith said he should have agreed to be interviewed for Chicago investigation | by: CBC

Gary Bettman must do the right thing and resign as NHL commissioner | by: Kevin McGran

I don’t want to call it a reckoning, but what hockey is going through right now with ending its protection of abusers and covering up assault and harassment has helped people who have been hurting for a while find some support. I hope the hockey men who covered up these crimes keep losing their jobs, I hope the media finally gets this lesson to speak up to stick in their heads, and I hope the NHLPA finally learns to defend their peers who become victims. The news has been wave after wave of heavy and I hope everyone is taking care of themselves and checking in on the people who need it the most. I’ve been reading the comments, though sometimes I skipp threads when it becomes too much, and I’m glad most are showing that support for each other.

And last, here’s what’s new on the Jack Eichel trade front.

From The Branches