Sunday evening the Toronto Maple Leafs announced that they had signed their top prospect Matthew Knies to an entry level contract (ELC).
The signing comes a day after the Toronto Maple Leafs prospect’s collegiate team, the University of Minnesota Gophers, lost in the Frozen Four Championship game. Knies and his teammates held a 2-1 lead late into the third period, but the Quinnipiac University Bobcats tied the game with minutes to go and then won it ten seconds into overtime.
The signing of Knies now ends any speculation that he could go back to school for one more season and become an unrestricted free agent next summer.
The 2021 second round pick was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award for the top collegiate hockey player in the NCAA this past season, however he would lose out to undrafted top prospect Adam Fantilli. Knies was able to take home a lot of other hardware as he was named to the All-B1G First Team, as well as the All-American West First Team, while also earning the B1G Player of the Year.
Toronto Maple Leafs Sign Matthew Knies
Knies is a 6’3”, 210 lbs power forward that plays left wing and the Leafs hope he can fit in the middle six for the playoffs. He is coming of a 21-goals this year in 40 games where he also registered 42 points. In just over a year, Knies has represented the United States in both the World Junior Championships as well as the 2022 Olympics where he collected a pair of points in four games.
The Toronto Maple Leafs finish out the season this week with three games in four nights on the road starting in Florida on Monday night. It is expected that the organization will want to get Knies in each of these contests to get a gage on what they have in the young prospect heading in to the playoffs.
Forward lines on Sunday morning were as follow:
Bunting – Matthews – Marner
Tavares – O’Reilly – Nylander
Kerfoot – Acciari – Simmonds
Aston-Reese – Kampf – Lafferty
Obviously it will be interesting to see where Knies slots into the lineup, but given the liklihood of the team resting players in advance of the playoffs, it may be difficult to read too much into whatever lines they end up using.
In order to make room on the roster and salary cap for Knies, the Leafs sent Wayne Simmonds to the Toronto Marlies, after he played what is widely speculated to be his final regular season NHL game Saturday night, though it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see him make an appearance in the playoffs.