Photo by Jenn G from Seattle, WA, CC BY-SA 2.0

Matthew Knies

66 points, minus 30, and 62 per cent of his shots from inside 20 feet.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2022-23	TOR	3	0	1	1	+1	2	0	0	0	4	0.0	13:07
2023-24	TOR	80	15	20	35	+9	45	0	0	3	115	13.0	13:41
2024-25	TOR	78	29	29	58	+7	43	5	0	6	152	19.1	18:31
2025-26	TOR	79	23	43	66	-30	29	6	1	2	140	16.4	18:48
2026-27 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	240	67	93	160	-13	119	11	1	11	411	16.3	16:56

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

23 goals and 43 assists in 79 games — 66 points, minus-30, at 18:48 a night with 6 power-play goals.

160 points in 240 career games.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is the best on the club and one of the better ones in the league. 62 per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside 20 feet with a median of 13, and only 9 per cent from beyond 40.

21 goals from 189 attempts. He scores from the crease because that is the only place he shoots from, and at 232 pounds it is a place he can hold.

43 assists is the surprise and the best evidence that there is more here than a net-front power forward.

The Physical Game

6-3 and 232 pounds, and among the heaviest forwards in the league — he wins the wall, wins the front of the net, and forechecks with real violence.

29 penalty minutes is low for the way he plays, which is a compliment.

The Intangibles

44.5 per cent of the expected goals, 12th percentile, and 42.3 per cent of the shot attempts, 3rd percentile, across 1,115 minutes, with the chances 43.0 for and 53.7 against.

That attempt share is the worst of any Toronto regular and the minus-30 is the worst figure on the club.

9 points in his last 10, 5 of them goals. He is 23, a 57th overall pick, and he scored 66 points while being on the ice for the most one-sided possession in a lineup that had nothing else. Which of those 2 things is him is the question this club has to answer before it pays him.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
67.7% of his attempts in the slot, 93rd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
durable· was available
79 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 1,115 minutes

Expected goals: 44.5%; 13th pct
Shot attempts: 42.3%; 3rd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 44 for, 58 against. Expected: 43.0 and 53.6.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted

Report

92nd

Numbers

13th

The report ranks him 79 points above where the numbers do. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 81 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 79 games

Top speed: 22.3 mph; 53rd pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.23 a game
Distance: 2.77 miles a game
Hardest shot: 87.2 mph; 64th pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

points in his last 10 games — 5 goals, 4 assists, 15 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 1115 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2025-26

The club: TOR took 46.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.5% — 1.8 below the club he did it on.
The role: First line, 1,115 minutes at five-on-five — 73rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Auston Matthews	47.2%	42.6%	48.5%
Morgan Rielly	46.0%	43.5%	49.4%
Max Domi	39.5%	47.4%	48.0%

47.2% together, 42.6% for him apart and 48.5% for Matthews apart. He was worse away from Matthews, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Matthews did.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

189 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 21 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 62% of his shots came from inside twenty feet.