The contract will take Liljegren through his age 23 and age 24 seasons and leave him as an arbitration-eligible RFA in 2024 at the age of 25.
Prior to this season, the point was often made by GM Kyle Dubas and head coach Sheldon Keefe that Liljegren’s upside as a fledgling defenseman might’ve been viewed in a much different light had he taken a development path through the CHL, college, or the SHL route instead of crossing over to the AHL as an 18-year-old and spending over three years developing in Toronto. Combine that with the fact that he was once billed as a potential top-five pick who fell to the Leafs in the bottom half of the first round of the 2017 draft, and many in the market were lukewarm on Liljegren’s NHL prospects if not writing them off altogether.