This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Matthew Knies
Toronto Maple Leafs Left Wing
A median shot distance of fourteen feet and 62 per cent of his attempts from inside 20 — the most extreme net-front profile in this edition.
| 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 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 161 | 44 | 50 | 94 | +17 | 90 | 5 | 0 | 9 | 271 | 16.2 | 16:01 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
29 goals and 29 assists in 78 games — 58 points at 18:31 a night, plus-7, with 5 power-play goals, 6 game-winning goals and 43 penalty minutes on 152 shots, converting at 19.1 per cent.
53.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 78th percentile. His ice went 51-42 against an expectation of 46.97-41.01 — seven goals of scoring missing and eight fewer conceded.
The Finesse Game
152 attempts at a median of 14 feet with 62 per cent from inside 20 feet and 10 per cent from beyond 40. That is the most extreme net-front shot profile of any forward in this edition and it is not close. He scores from the paint and he does not shoot from anywhere else.
29 assists in 78 games is better than the role suggests. He is the man who wins the puck on the wall and gives it to a scorer, and on a line with two of them that is a considerable job.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 232 pounds and among the heaviest forwards in the league. He wins every wall battle he enters, he cannot be moved from the front of a net, and he forechecks with genuine force.
43 penalty minutes in 78 games is a moderate rate and a share of it is the extra shove in the crease. He is not an agitator by trade and he does not back out of anything.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick in 2021 out of Minnesota, and he turned professional in time to play in the 2023 playoffs — 161 games and 94 points.
He is 23 and this was his first full season as a top-six winger. On a club that has spent a decade being told it is too soft, he is the answer it drafted itself.
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
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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
68.7% of his attempts in the slot, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“He scores from the paint and he does not shoot from anywhere else.”
“He wins every wall battle he enters, he cannot be moved from the front of a net, and he forechecks with genuine force.”
“He wins every wall battle he enters, he cannot be moved from the front of a net, and he forechecks with genuine force.”
“He wins every wall battle he enters, he cannot be moved from the front of a net, and he forechecks with genuine force.”
“He wins every wall battle he enters, he cannot be moved from the front of a net, and he forechecks with genuine force.”
“He is not an agitator by trade and he does not back out of anything.”
“He is the man who wins the puck on the wall and gives it to a scorer, and on a line with two of them that is a considerable job.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,050 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.4%
- 81st pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.3%
- 56th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 51 for, 42 against. Expected: 47.0 and 41.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 12 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 82 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, 2024-25 · 78 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 90th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.45 a game
- Distance
- 2.77 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 90.5 mph
- 82nd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 1050 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, 2024-25
- The club
- TOR took 50.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.4% — 3.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 1,050 minutes at five-on-five — 68th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auston Matthews | 56.7% | 46.4% | 54.3% |
| Mitchell Marner | 56.0% | 48.3% | 51.9% |
| Morgan Rielly | 53.7% | 53.2% | 48.2% |
56.7% together, 46.4% for him apart and 54.3% 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
214 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 29 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 62% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 10% from beyond forty.