Photo credit: Nick Turchiaro – USA Today Sports

Maple Leafs star Mitch Marner addresses the performance of sophomore winger Matthew Knies on the top line to begin the 2024-25 season.

Brad Treliving and company were far more concerned with their back-end and goaltending this summer as evidenced by the myriad of signings, and the lack thereof up front, leaving the forward corps very similar, minus PTO additions Steven Lorentz and Max Pacioretty.

The Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t replace Tyler Bertuzzi with a new face, but instead opted to give Matthew Knies the opportunity of a life-time, riding shotgun on the top line with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.

The sophomore has 6 goals and 7 points in 12 games to begin the 2024-25 season but has shown great chemistry with the top guns and they’ve been equally complimentary about his addition to their line, including the captain:

“He’s just so strong and he has such a presence down low and in front of the net. Myself and Mitchy kind of working the puck around and stuff and he’s finding really good spots and he’s capitalizing on some of these opportunities. He’s a beast, he’s easy to play with, we know where he’s going to be, he’s in good spots every time.”
Marner felt the same exact way, believing that Knies’ unique combination of size and speed is a huge boon for the two superstars, especially because, at times, it’s not always easy playing with them:

“He’s a big horse out there, he’s a big fella, he gets up and down the ice really quickly. I was saying earlier, it’s not always the easiest to play with Auston and I, kind of the sporadic-ness, sometimes we go in weird spots because we know where each other are but some guys can’t really figure out. But Knies has done an unbelievable job of that this year and really started to get along with it last year as well. It’s been great to see him come into his own, he’s a big body and wins a lot of one-on-one battles and gets the puck back for us.”
 

 

The architect of the Maple Leafs’ lines, Craig Berube, essentially reverberated the words of his two superstars. Knies’ power forward build gives the top line a new element they’ve been lacking for a few years.
“I think that he just understands the type of player that he is and he’s doing shift to shift, in my opinion. That power forward, very strong, skating direct north, hard at the net, physical, those types of things and he knows when he creates those loose pucks for those guys to get to the net and he’s getting rewarded from it.”
Look for Knies to improve upon his 15 goals and 35 points from his rookie year and bring about the same level of success that Michael Bunting had the first time he played with Matthews and Marner. Knies certainly has more skill than Bunting and the 22-year-old has been everything as advertised to begin the season – and his career.