{"id":460367,"date":"2025-01-09T11:31:37","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T16:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=460367"},"modified":"2025-01-09T11:31:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T16:31:37","slug":"star-maple-leafs-forward-deserves-a-big-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/01\/09\/star-maple-leafs-forward-deserves-a-big-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Maple Leafs Forward Deserves A Big Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seeing a young star get better and better by the year is truly a thrill, especially when they’re this young and still have a long way up to go. The young Arizona native<\/a> Matthew Knies’ Maple Leafs Contract<\/a> is up this year.\u00a0The now 22-year-old has been paid $925,000<\/a> a year throughout the Entry Level Contract.<\/p>\n

As fans, we love his entertaining goals, offensive production, accurate shooting, and physicality. As of the last game, according to The Daily Faceoff<\/a>,<\/em> he left winged the top line<\/a> alongside superstar centre Auston Matthews and star winger Mitch Marner. Of course, we hope the Buds re-sign him to a large, long-term Maple Leafs contract.<\/p>\n

Matthew Knies’ Potential Offensive Production Earns Him a Big Maple Leafs Contract<\/h2>\n

Knies had a decent first full NHL season<\/a> offensively (2023-24), posting 35 points (15 goals & 20 assists) in 80 games.\u00a0In half that many games so far this year, he has 26 points (16 goals & 10 assists).<\/a> This would work out to approximately 53 points (33 goals & 20 assists) at an 82-game pace this year. What this means for the future is, as he continues to get into his prime, he could produce more and more each year. This is especially the case if he scores or assists on setups from superstars like Matthews and Marner. Knies is also an accurate shooter<\/a>, with a 22.9 shooting percentage so far this season, in the league’s 96th percentile.<\/p>\n

Knies has been red hot offensively lately, posting<\/a> five goals and seven points in his last five games.\u00a0Most of those goals (three to be exact) came in the Maple Leafs’ 6-4 win<\/a> against the Boston Bruins on Jan. 4, when he notched a hat trick and five points.<\/p>\n

“It felt like a playoff game today with the physicality and the back-and-forth play. Yeah, it was a good game, you know. [I] give them props, they played a hell of a game. And they’re a good team over there, and you know, I think we capitalized on our chances today and, you know, it was a good effort from everyone,” said Knies in a post game interview<\/a> with the media on Jan. 4.<\/p>\n

Matthew Knies’ Physicality Earns Him a Big Maple Leafs Contract<\/h2>\n

It’s good he mentioned physicality following the Leafs’ victory over the Bruins, since NHL playoffs can be rough, aggressive and fierce, especially when they are facing a competitive division rival like the Bruins or even the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning.<\/p>\n

It is worth noting Knies’ ability to throw the body too, since playoff grit may be important for the Maple Leafs to have deeper runs. At the moment, he is on pace for an NHL regular-season career high in hits. Knies\u00a0notched 169 hits in 80 games<\/a> last regular season. This year, he has 86 hits in 40 games so far, which would be about 176 hits at an 82-game pace.<\/p>\n

Knies said he wants to keep up the positive aspects of his game going forward.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, I think it’s just becoming a lot more simple. I think I’m winning a lot more puck battles and finding myself open a lot around the net and that’s the kind of player I have to be, right? Get open around the net and find ways to get pucks in and you know, I just found a way to do that. So, I just want to keep that going,” Knies said in a post game interview<\/a> with the media after Tuesday’s win.<\/p>\n

For these reasons, we argue a big, long-term Maple Leafs contract is in order.\u00a0That being said, other financial space is needed for contracts<\/a> such as Marner’s and former captain and superstar forward John Tavares’ since they too expire at the end of this season. But, if the monetary situation works out, Knies is no doubt an important chess piece.<\/p>\n

Main Photo: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeing a young star get better and better by the year is truly a thrill, especially when they’re this young and still have a long way up to go. The young Arizona native Matthew Knies’ Maple Leafs Contract is up this year.\u00a0The now 22-year-old has been paid $925,000 a year throughout the Entry Level Contract. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5243,"featured_media":460452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4548,4547,18],"tags":[6847,72],"class_list":["post-460367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl","category-hockey","category-leafs","tag-matthew-knies","tag-toronto-maple-leafs"],"modified_by":"Tommy Bennett","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460367"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":460454,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460367\/revisions\/460454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}