EDMONTON — For a good 10 years, Max Pacioretty scored more goals than just about anyone in the NHL.
But at age 22, the same age that Matthew Knies is now, Pacioretty was still splitting his time between the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens and AHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs.
In other words, Pacioretty, who would become one of the game’s great scorers and power forwards, wasn’t doing what Knies is now for the Maple Leafs at the same age. The youngest Leaf most nights, Knies is on pace for 31 goals this season.
His 19 goals to this point — already a career high — trail only Lucas Raymond (20) among NHLers aged 22 and younger.
Pacioretty sees major potential in his teammate, and not just as a big body — the biggest body among Leaf skaters, in fact, at 227 pounds — who can score around the net.
“Sometimes guys that get labeled that way only play around the net. But he’s a big, fast, strong, powerful guy (with) really good hands (and a) really good shot,” Pacioretty said after Knies scored again for the Leafs during a 4-3 Saturday night victory over the Oilers. “So I think he can be a play driver, a guy that drives a line himself. And there’s not too many guys in the league that can say they do that.”
A play driver. Not just the sidekick that Knies is now, a sophomore playing alongside a pair of superstars in Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. Someone who can be the feature player of his own line instead.
It’s the speed, the strength, the hockey sense and especially Knies’ ability to hold onto pucks with poise that has Pacioretty believing in Knies’ potential that way. Some guys “panic” when they get the puck in certain areas of the ice. “Those top guys don’t,” Pacioretty said. “And I think he has that trait.”
In so many ways, Knies is just scratching the surface of what he can become for the Leafs.
Knies is obviously not there yet as the play driver that Pacioretty envisions he can become. However, the effectiveness of his minutes without both Matthews and Marner this season (55 percent expected goals) are similar to his minutes with them (56 percent).
That wasn’t the case during an up-and-down rookie season when he struggled mightily without their star power (37 percent).
The power play is another dimension that Knies is just beginning to tap into in the NHL. The power-play goal he scored in Edmonton was his third ever in the NHL over 130 regular-season games. Two of those goals, mind you, have come in Knies’ last three games.
Knies hands in tight pic.twitter.com/ZsV9yWWfPk
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) February 2, 2025
That’s some of the poise that Pacioretty is talking about.
Knies’ ability to make plays around the blue paint has added a promising new wrinkle to an often-stagnant No. 1 power-play unit for the Leafs.
“I actually feel like the more presence I can bring there, the more they have to worry about it, they have to honour me,” Knies said recently of the defenders he hoped to draw toward him on the power play. “And that creates more space on the seam passes and plays like that.”
Knies is plenty familiar with the net-front gig, having played there for two years at the University of Minnesota. He nabbed only sporadic time on the power play as a rookie last season and didn’t score once.
More and more, he looks like someone who should be stapled to that first unit.
“Obviously, given his role,” Pacioretty said, “Mitchy spreads everybody out, everybody wants to cover him, so it leaves a little bit of an area at the net for Kniesy.”
“(Knies) has done an amazing job on that net front,” Marner said.
Most of Knies’ scoring this season has come at five-on-five. In fact, he’s been one of the most productive in the league there: His 1.35 goals per 60 minutes ranks 10th among all NHLers who’ve logged at least 200 minutes (just behind William Nylander and just in front of Bobby McMann).
It’s notable that while Knies is scoring more that way this season than he did as a rookie (0.9 goals per 60), he’s not generating any more shots or attempts. However, the quality of those looks has improved: Knies is mustering over five high-danger chances per 60 minutes, a top-10 mark in the NHL this season.
Knies ranks near the top of the league in goals and shooting percentage from high-danger zones, per NHL EDGE analytics.
Just about half of his shots come from down there (which would explain, at least in part, why he’s shooting 23 percent overall).
All of which is to say that he’s quickly figured out where he needs to do business.
The fact he appears headed for a 30-goal season, thriving in top-line minutes, at this age makes you wonder what Knies might do at, say, 25 when he’s gathered even more experience in (and intel on) the league. Where else might his game grow?
Can he add more playmaking, for instance? Though he’s hung with Matthews for most of his career, Knies has assisted on only 10 of Matthews’ 48 five-on-five goals.
Knies is on pace for just over 50 points. If the playmaking grows, he potentially becomes a 70-point player one day, perhaps more.
Can he become a more consistently disruptive forechecker? He’s still in the early days of his NHL career as a penalty killer, meanwhile, another role that was added to his repertoire on a full-time basis this season.
Knies will inevitably become more consistent, prone to fewer of the (fatigue-related?) lulls that have plagued his game at times this season and last.
It’s his unique set of skills, some of which go beyond the scoresheet, that make his next contract difficult to forecast (and difficult for both the Leafs and Knies’ camp to settle on; Knies is set to become a restricted free agent this summer). There aren’t a lot of young power wingers with that level of upside and all-around ability to compare him to.
Knies really is just getting started.
— Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Stat Head, NHL EDGE and Hockey Reference.
(Photo: Rich Graessle / Getty Images)
