The Toronto Maple Leafs season came to an end in Boston again last season. While it was a disappointing end to add to a long history of brutal playoff series for this core there were some positives to take out of it.
One of them was young forward Matthew Knies, coming into his own during the series and became a real impact player for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
He played 80 games, scoring 15 goals and recording 20 assists for 35 points in his first full season in the NHL. During the playoffs, he played in all seven games against Boston, where he scored two goals, one being the game-five overtime winner and had an assist for three points in the series (All stats from NHL.com).
While the point totals weren't that impressive, where he impressed me was when playoffs rolled around. He engaged physically and although he did have a few moments where he looked like a rookie, he played a much more mature game than he did in the regular season.
The Toronto Maple Leafs Should Lock up Knies Before a Breakout
With the progression we've seen in his game, I think Knies could be a candidate for a breakout year this upcoming season.
Teams have taken risks with their young talent and locked them up to big deals before their breakout year. We have just seen it with the divisional rivals Montreal Canadiens and Juraj Slafkovsky, who just signed an eight-year deal with an average annual value of 7.6 million. Another example is the Joseph Woll contract the Leafs just signed which ended up being a three-year deal with an AAV of 3.66 million (All salary statistics from PuckPedia.com).
While there is a risk to these deals, if you make the right bets, you can get your top talents locked in long-term and have the deal look like an underpay once they hit their prime.
When you have the cap structure the Leafs have, you need to gamble with some deals you sign. I like the approach to the Woll deal and I think it will work out well for the Leafs. If Knies is open to doing it, Treliving should try to lock him up before the season begins.
Knies is in the final year of his entry-level deal and is a restricted free agent after this season. If you can pay him and lock him into a long-term deal before the season you could probably get him at an AAV of around 4 to 4.5 million.
Getting him at a lower AAV because he hasn't played much is a great way of getting a productive cheap forward. If he doesn't play up to that deal, then there isn't too much risk. With the cap going up each year, that cap hit will continue to look a lot more manageable.
Knies has shown flashes of what he can be, a strong physical forward and at the age of 21 he doesn't seem scared of the stars in this league.
Locking him in now could save Treliving some money on an important deal down the road.