Matthew Knies is expected to take on a larger leadership role with the Toronto Maple Leafs this year, after signing a six-year extension with the team in the offseason. Ahead of the upcoming season, Knies spoke with Nick Alberga and Jay Rosehill on Tuesday’s edition of Leafs Morning Take, where he explained why he’s able to elevate his game in the playoffs, what went wrong against the Florida Panthers, how he spent his summer and more in a wide-ranging interview.
Knies continued to elevate his game throughout the year, showing significant improvement as a penalty killer, while becoming an essential part of the team’s power play. The 22-year-old has been a staple of the team’s top line alongside Auston Matthews for the past two seasons, and his physical presence, scoring touch and ability to hound down pucks made him one of the team’s best players in the playoffs. Knies explained why he’s able to raise his game during the spring, when time and space are much harder to navigate.
“I just think it’s so simple hockey,” Knies explained. “It’s such north-south hockey and that’s exactly how I play. It’s physical, it’s hard, a lot of the bounces are around the net and that’s where I score my goals. That’s a big reason as to why I think I tend to do a little bit better, how simple the game gets and how much more physically demanding the game (gets). I think little things like that is why I tend to have more success.”
For a moment, it appeared the Maple Leafs were on the verge of their first trip to the conference finals since 2002, after taking a 2-0 series lead agains the Florida Panthers. We all know how this played out, as the Panthers stormed back into the battle, before eliminating the Maple Leafs in a 6-1 rout that officially marked the end of the Core Four era. Knies explained what went wrong during the series.
“We had such a great start in that series and I think we showed what we could do,” Knies said. “Our consistency just wasn’t there throughout the whole series. We let some games slip and weren’t on the pedal. I think we didn’t play as physical as we needed to, as tough as we needed to in those key games, especially in Game 7. To let them push us around was obviously very unacceptable. With the guys we’ve added, we’ve added a lot of grit and muscle to our team and that will be important. When it comes to playoff time, it’s big boy hockey and I think we added a lot of that.”
Mitch Marner is a now a member of the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Maple Leafs worked to add depth forwards with some secondary scoring touch in Matias Maccelli, Dakota Joshua and Nicolas Roy. Joshua and Roy are expected to provide a physical presence on a revamped third line, and the Maple Leafs may be better suited for playoff hockey this year than previous iterations. And if there is additional pressure on this year’s group, Knies seems to be impervious to it.
“Everyone is so involved. It’s such a loving and passionate city. It’s fun to be a part of. It gets to you at times. It can kind of sway you mentally but I think if you stay level-headed and block out some of the noise, and just focus on yourself, focus on the game. I kind of try to take my mind off hockey when we’re in season as much as possible, and I think I do a really good job of that, and that’s why I tend not to see much of that stuff or not try to get it to affect me.”
It’s certainly worth watching the rest of Knies’ interview with the new season rapidly approaching, as the 22-year-old will be expected to take a leap from fan favourite to part of the core leadership group.