Toronto Maple Leafs may not have enough money to sign Matthew Knies

Many teams in the NHL have recently started extending some of their top prospects before they even reach the final year of their entry-level contracts, overpaying players that haven't even fully proven their worth yet. We've seen the Ottawa Senators make the terrible decision of throwing too much money at Jake Sanderson, the Buffalo Sabres basically handed the keys of the franchise to Owen Power, and now the Wild have given Brock Faber his contract on a gold platter. Matthew Knies is salivating at the thought of having something similar done with the Maple Leafs.

Faber has only played one full season in the NHL and scored 47 points in 82 games, but was handed over $8 million a year for that. The Leafs simply do not have cap space right now to be doing something similar with Knies.

Knies is not worth $8.5 million per year, however the Leafs will want to lock him up long-term, and may be forced to overpay now, which will hopefully be justified in the long run. Toronto wouldn't want to spend more than $6 million per year, and that's likely all they can afford anyways. It will be interesting to see if Knies tries to push back on that.

Matthew Knies had a decent campaign with the Leafs last season, scoring 15 goals and adding 20 assists in the 80 games he played.

Source: Maple Leafs Daily
Trouble in Toronto as Matthew Knies sees ex-NCAA teammate land $68M deal

Source: HockeyDB
Matthew Knies Statistics