Toronto Maple Leafs should have signed Matthew Knies before breakout

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been looking for young, cheap talent to help the core produce for years.

In last year's playoffs, Matthew Knies seemed to find his game. Many thought it was the beginning of his breakout. This season Knies has gotten off to a great start for the Toronto Maple Leafs. 

The 22-year-old has played 10 games, posting five goals and one assist for six points to begin the year. He has scored a goal in four of the last five games (Stats from NHL.com).

Knies doesn't just provide points when he is on the ice. He's a big body that plays a physical game, which made him effective in the last playoffs against Boston. With his big frame and willingness to go into the dirty areas of the ice, he's exactly what this team needed.

Toronto Maple Leafs should have signed Matthew Knies before breakout

This offseason I wrote an article about how I thought the Leafs should've taken the risk and got Knies locked up before the season began. Early returns suggest I was right.

Knies is a restricted free agent this summer and an important piece of this team. Drafting and developing talent is important in leagues with salary caps and Dubas drafting Knies in the second round was a great pick.

While Knies development is indeed great news, in order to get a competitive advantage in a salary cap system, smart NHL teams have to proactively bet on their young players and lock them up before they break out and massively increase their value.

The Leafs should taken the risk and locked Knies up earlier. This often happens with this team, where they force their players to "earn" their contract in the contract year, and it has come back to bite them almost every single time.  Throughout the cap era, there likely isn't a team that pays a higher price for their own free-agents than the Leafs.

I liked what Treliving did with the Woll contract in the summer and Knies should've gotten done right after. He is producing through the first 10 games while playing with Matthews and Marner. While many people think playing with those two guys makes it easier, and to a degree it is, it is still a skill to play with top players like that and keep up.

Knies is a very good forechecker and brings a Hyman-like factor to that line, only unlikely Hyman, Knies actually has NHL size that he can use to his advantage.

With the struggles on the power play to begin the year, Berube has now put Knies on the first power play unit with Matthews, Marner, Pacioretty and Rielly. With more opportunities on the power play, his point totals will only go up, making his contract more expensive.

I suggested the Leafs could get him on a long-term deal with an average annual value of 4.5 million, but I think the price is going up slightly. A loose comparison could be the Slafkovsky deal, an eight-year deal with an AAV of 7.6 million. I'm not saying Knies will get that much, but I could see him getting a little over five million a year on a long-term deal (Salary statistics from PuckPedia.com).

His price tag is increasing with every strong game and the Leafs still have to sort out what is happening with Tavares and Marner.

Treliving should've been more proactive and now it looks like he might pay for it.