Maple Leafs star to return to action after being sidelined for more than a month

The Maple Leafs will welcome back an important part of their back end Saturday night against Pittsburgh as defenseman Timothy Liljegren told reporters including David Alter of The Hockey News that he’s ready to suit up, meaning Toronto will be activating him off LTIR.

The 24-year-old has missed the last six weeks with a lower-body injury sustained against Boston in early November.  Before being injured, he was averaging over 19 minutes a night, the highest ATOI of his young career while he was seeing a fair bit of action in Toronto’s top four.

Offensively, he has been limited to just one assist but he also has 18 blocked shots and was averaging close to two minutes per night on the penalty kill before the injury.  The Maple Leafs will certainly be happy to have a more defensive-oriented presence in their lineup.  Postmedia’s Lance Hornby adds that Liljegren could be partnered with Morgan Rielly tonight on the top pairing so he’ll be put into a big role quickly.  That said, with T.J. Brodie (illness) listed as questionable, those pairings could be tweaked.

In order for Toronto to officially activate Liljegren off LTIR, they will first need to open up the cap space to do so.  Saturday’s recall of Pontus Holmberg means they will be over the cap if they try to activate Liljegren.

They do have some options to get cap-compliant though.  The easiest one is to send a defenseman down (one of Simon Benoit, Maxime Lajoie or William Lagesson) which would get them just enough room.  If Ryan Reaves is going to be out for more than ten games and 24 days, he could be placed on LTIR which would give them more than enough room to activate Liljegren.  Alternatively, they could transfer Mark Giordano to LTIR retroactively; he’d be eligible to return on Dec. 23 in that scenario.  However, he is skating and if they feel he’s ready to return before then, that might not be the best route to go.  Either way, a roster move will be coming in order to get Liljegren in the lineup Saturday night.