Returning regular · 2025-26
Timothy Liljegren
Washington Capitals · RD · R shot · age 27 at the dated snapshot.
- Team
- WSH
- Lane
- RD
- Age
- 27
Production and deployment
How the points were built
Official NHL 2025–26 regular-season reports. A missing split stays “—”; it is never converted to zero.
Organizational context
4 RD regulars in WSH
The all-team median is 4. WSH’s farm system ranks #10 in the maintained two-board consensus.
Questions a GM still has to answer
- How much of the scoring comes at five-on-five, on special teams, or into an empty net?
- Is the player creating the play, finishing it, or receiving a secondary point?
- Does deployment reveal trust, scarcity, underuse, or a role the roster cannot offer?
- What contract, acquisition cost, development alternative and Cup-window effect complete the argument?
Contract · WSH
$3.25M cap hit
2026–27 through 2027–28. Certified
Cup signal › Costs more per point than the position median, but earns it with five-on-five creation or penalty-kill work.
- He kills penalties (2:09 a night), which points do not capture.
- Defencemen are compared only with defencemen. Points understate defensive value, so the on-ice impact measures on each player page carry the rest: the expected goals created and allowed while he plays, and the goals whose sequence began on his shift. The impact model in a later phase addresses that.
- 17 real points at this cap hit would pass the cost test (he had 11).
Shot quality · 2025-26
Expected goals
CapOrCup's shot model (distance, angle, shot type, strength, rebounds, rushes), trained on 2023-24 and 2024-25 and tested on unseen games (AUC 0.757). Finishing is goals minus expected goals; it is noisy in one season.
CapOrCup measures · 2025-26
What happens while he plays
Measured from the league's play-by-play and shift charts, not from the scoresheet. Expected goals are counted for every player on the ice, and a goal is credited to whoever was on the ice when the sequence began, including players who had changed off before it was scored.
Comparables at the same age
Who looked like this at 23 to 26
Careers are compared as league-adjusted points per game by age, over the same ages. The comparables below are the closest lines, and what matters is the spread of what they did next, not any single name.
This player so far: age 13 J20 Div.1 0.25 → age 14 U16 Elit 1.52 → age 15 J18 Elit 0.79 → age 16 SHL 0.26 → age 17 SHL 0.26 → age 18 AHL 0.39 → age 19 AHL 0.35 → age 20 NHL 0.09 → age 21 AHL 0.52 → age 22 NHL 0.38 → age 23 NHL 0.27 → age 24 NHL 0.42 → age 25 NHL 0.25 → age 26 NHL 0.26
| Player | Distance (lower is closer) | What he did afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Christian WolaninD · matched at ages 23, 24, 26 | 0.04 | age 27 AHL 0.22 → age 28 NHL 0.19 → age 29 AHL 0.31 → age 30 AHL 0.31 → age 31 AHL 0.27 |
| Esa LindellD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.06 | age 27 NHL 0.33 → age 28 NHL 0.29 → age 29 NHL 0.32 → age 30 NHL 0.33 → age 31 NHL 0.39 |
| Dylan DeMeloD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.06 | age 27 NHL 0.17 → age 28 NHL 0.17 → age 29 NHL 0.36 → age 30 NHL 0.38 → age 31 NHL 0.23 |
| John MarinoD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.07 | age 27 NHL 0.40 → age 28 NHL 0.45 |
| Tyler MyersD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.07 | age 27 NHL 0.46 → age 28 NHL 0.44 → age 29 NHL 0.39 → age 30 NHL 0.31 → age 31 NHL 0.38 |
| Ryan GravesD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.07 | age 27 NHL 0.33 → age 28 NHL 0.20 → age 29 NHL 0.07 → age 30 NHL 0.04 |
| Adam PelechD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.08 | age 27 NHL 0.36 → age 28 NHL 0.34 → age 29 NHL 0.28 → age 30 NHL 0.35 → age 31 NHL 0.20 |
| Jacob MacDonaldD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.08 | age 27 AHL 0.34 → age 28 NHL 0.27 → age 29 AHL 0.34 → age 30 NHL 0.06 → age 31 NHL 0.27 |
Reading it
If most comparables became NHL regulars and their later peak sits well above this player's current line, the numbers say there is room to grow. If most did not, the numbers say the odds are against it. Either way it is what the data shows, not a name chosen to flatter.
Goal archive ·
Every goal, with the league's video
Preseason, regular season and playoffs are kept apart. Each row links to the NHL's own highlight page; no video is hosted here. Where a clip has been reviewed, the reading of it is a model judgement of the frames, not a measurement.
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Availability
Games missed
The NHL publishes no injury feed. This counts games his club played while he did not dress, for any reason: injury, illness, a healthy scratch, a suspension or a trade gap. No cause is claimed.
NHL EDGE tracking · 2025-26
Speed, shot and ice
From the NHL's own player-tracking data. Percentiles are the NHL's: the share of the league below this player.