As we all know by now, the Toronto Maple Leafs almost traded young star winger Matthew Knies to the Montreal Canadiens at the deadline earlier this year. Then general manager Brad Treliving was going to go out in a blaze of glory, but moving the 23-year-old to the team's archrival for a bunch of prospects.
But, according to a recent report, there was a very intriguing prospect that Toronto was going hard after as the trade talks went on.
While there are reports that says that the deal was done and final but the hiccup in it was that it was filed one single minute after the deadline, and that's why it didn't go through, there might have been someone else involved. The reported deal was Knies to Montreal for hot Russian prospect Alexander Zharovsky, defenseman Bryce Pickford, and two first-round picks.
The Leafs were trying to pry a different prospect from the Canadiens, though.
Leafs wanted Michael Hage in Knies trade talks
According to NHL insider Darren Dreger, the Leafs were pushing for stud prospect Michael Hage to be included in the deal. The 20-year-old Mississauga native was selected 21st overall by the Canadiens in 2024 and has been lighting it up for the University of Michigan ever since.
"Toronto was definitely after Hage. Most defeinitely," Dreger said earlier this week. "So how close it got -- it's debatable. When you get into the complexity of how I just described it, then you're in the weeds. ... There had to be a considerable back and forth."
That would have been interesting.
If it was Hage included instead of Zharovksy -- as great as the Russian forward has been, Hage certainly has a little bit of a higher reputation and projectability into the NHL -- then maybe more Leafs fans would be wishing the deal actually went through.
Hage just finished a season where he scored 13 goals and 52 points in 39 games for the Wolverines, which ranked fourth in the entire country. And, he scored 15 points in just seven games for the Canadian World Juniors team; just to add to the potential.
There is a world where he ends up being a very solid second-line center and the Leafs need that desperately for their future as John Tavares starts to decline and start playing more like his age. It would have at least been interesting.
But still, considering Hage is a born-and-bred Canadiens fan and has a great story attached with his fandom leading to him being selected by Montreal, GM Kent Hughes was probably unwilling to part with a player like that, and a bunch of future draft picks too.
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